Advanced Optics: Critical and Enabling Optical Technologies

PS&A's advanced optical components and technologies (AOCT) program element develops, creates and provides critical optical components for laser-based missions at LLNL. Past projects focused on kinoform phase plates for LLNL's Nova laser and on large-area, submicron-pitch holographic diffraction gratings for LLNL's Petawatt (10¹⁵ watt) ultrashort-pulse laser.

Today, the (AOCT) team designs and fabricates a variety of custom diffractive optics for researchers worldwide. Included are multilayer dielectric and gold-overcoated master diffraction gratings for pulse compression (up to one meter in diameter); ion-beam-etched transmission gratings; wet-etched gratings; multilevel-etched Fresnel lenses and phase plates (up to meter-scale); segmented Fresnel lenses (multiple-meter scale); continuous-contour optics such as phase plates fabricated by wet-etch figuring; replicated polymeric freestanding and attached diffractive films (at 50-centimeters scale); and many other specialty optics.

$Multilayer Dielectric Diffraction Gratings$ Multilayer dielectric diffraction gratings produced for NIF's Advanced Radiographic Capability petawatt laser have record size, damage resistance and efficiency.

Traditionally, LLNL has had world-leading efforts in fabrication of large-area laser and non-linear optical crystals. Recently, PS&A has also developed an ability to produce device-scale, laser-quality transparent ceramic optics with an emphasis on designer laser materials and components that will enable new, compact and efficient laser architectures for energy and defense applications.

AOCT's efforts have been essential to expanding PS&A's international leadership of average-power, high-peak-power and high-photon-energy systems and applications.