Operational Experience with Optical Streak Cameras at the National Ignition Facility

摘要

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) utilizes over 6 optical streak camera systems that collect data from 350 to 1053 nm band during a full system laser shot. The camera systems are configured to collect single or multiple intensity profile signals, spectrally resolved data, spatially resolved interferometry data, and spatially resolved intensity data. The output data format represents the temporal resolution of the recorded event as a two dimensional image. For all these configurations, the time record ranges from 3ns to 100 ns. The precision of the recorded data requires several calibration techniques that provide an overall 2D space-time warp correction that is applied to the raw streak data. The article shall review the typical applications of the optical streak cameras on NIF, the performance of the calibration applied to shot data while in operation and the overall performance and reliability of the camera systems over the several years of operation.