This year the laser industry is celebrating 50 years since the Theodore Maiman demonstrated the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratory. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Maiman at a trade show many years ago as well a brief visit to the laboratory at Hughes Research Laboratory (HRL) overlooking Malibu, California where the demonstration took place. At both Photonics West and CLEO this year there were displays of lasers old and new celebrating the birth of the laser and the 50 years of innovation since that changed many lives and brought about an industry that continues to thrive today.
While attending the CLEO trade show in San Jose, California last month I learned that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was providing tours of the NIF facility which contains the world’s largest and highest energy laser https://lasers.llnl.gov/ . Since Livermore is relatively close to our home base I thought why not organize a field trip with some like minded people in the laser industry to continue the celebration of the half century mark of laser.
I was able to contact LLNL and set up a tour very quickly. We were very fortunate to have one of the laser Physicists from the lab conduct the tour which allowed our group to get a much more detailed technical presentation than I would imagine would be possible otherwise. The abbreviation by which the lab is known, LLNL, we were told by our tour guide, really means; Lasers, Lasers, Nothing but, Lasers.
The facility itself is quite impressive covering the size of a large football stadium. Ground was broken on the facility in 1997 and the construction was completed in March 2009. The goal for the laser portion of the facility is to generate 1.8 mega joules of UV laser energy to the target. There were a number of technical hurdles that needed to be overcome to make this happen including the manufacture of large plates of the phosphate glass for the amplifiers, growth of very large KDP crystals and development of large aperture optical switches just to name a few. You can read more on the seven wonders of NIF on the LLNL web site https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/seven_wonders.php .
Our group was impressed not by only the immense size of the facility and the laser itself but also the engineering and design work that went into the project to make the facility a reality. Clearly there are many talented engineers and physicists that have worked and continue to work on this project that should be proud of what they have accomplished. We have certainly come a long way since that first Ruby laser was demonstrated at HRL fifty years ago.