Design
The design team is responsible for developing requirements and concepts for short-pulse generation, chirped-pulse amplification, compression, beam focusing, co-timing, and co-pointing. The design effort also includes multiple focusing geometries, on-target pulse width adjustability, and identifying critical technology needs and commercial solutions.
Prototyping
The prototyping team addresses the three areas of highest risk that have been identified for the RI-1 project:
- The development of actively cooled disk amplifiers (ACoDA),
- The development of a manufacturing process to produce large aperture gratings, and
- The manufacturing process for growing large boules of highly uniform deuterated potassium dihydrogen phosphate (DKDP) crystals.
The demonstration of these prototypes and processes will allow a future implementation project to be ready for final design in the first one to two years.