Design And Operation Of The Multiple-Pulse Driver Line On The Omega Laser

The multiple-pulse driver line (MPD) provides on-shot co-propagation of two separately generated pulse shapes in all 60 OMEGA beams at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD), which increases the laser bandwidth, can be applied to either one of the two pulse shapes, thereby enabling dynamic bandwidth reduction. The design of the MPD required careful consideration of beam combination as well as the minimum pulse separation for two pulses generated by two separate seed sources. A new combined-pulse-shape diagnostic needed to be designed and installed after the last SSD grating. The capability of MPD to reduce dynamic bandwidth has been used on a series of campaigns on OMEGA and the performance data are presented.