Lawrence Livermore Laboratory awards $2.4 million optical-coating contract

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory awards $2.4 million optical-coating contract

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA) has awarded Spectra-Physics (Mountain View, CA) a $2.4 million contract to produce optical coatings for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The award will be released in phases through 1999, with production scheduled for 2000 through 2002. The NIF is expected to go on-line in 2003. Spectra-Physics will manufacture the coatings in a 2.4-m vacuum chamber using a physical vapor-deposition process. The precision multilayered coatings will be about 5 µm thick and laser-light-conditioned for high damage thresholds. A large-aperture interferom eter will be used to test the coatings for flatness to a precision of 30 nm. The NIF laser system will use 8000 large optical components of about 1 m and more than 30,000 smaller optical components.