Novette was a two beam

neodymium Neodymium is a chemical element with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is the fourth member of the lanthanide series and is considered to be one of the rare-earth metals. It is a hard, slightly malleable, silvery metal that quickly tarnishes i ...

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

(

phosphate glass Phosphate glass is a class of optical glasses composed of metaphosphates of various metals. Instead of SiO2 in silicate glasses, the glass forming substrate is P2O5. Discovery Dr. Alexis G. Pincus of the American Optical Company supplied alum ...

) testbed

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

built at

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

in about 15 months throughout 1981 and 1982 and was completed in January 1983. Novette was made using recycled parts from the dismantled

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

and Argus lasers and borrowed parts from the future

Nova laser Nova was a high-power laser built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, United States, in 1984 which conducted advanced inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments until its dismantling in 1999. Nova was the first ...

. Its main intended purpose was to validate the proposed design and expected performance of the then planned Nova laser. In addition to being used for the further study of enhanced laser to target plasma energy coupling utilizing frequency tripled light and examining its benefits with respect to

inertial confinement fusion Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a fusion energy process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by compressing and heating targets filled with thermonuclear fuel. In modern machines, the targets are small spherical pellets about the size of ...

, Novette was also used in the world's first laboratory demonstration of an

x-ray laser An X-ray laser is a device that uses stimulated emission to generate or amplify electromagnetic radiation in the near X-ray or extreme ultraviolet region of the spectrum, that is, usually on the order of several tens of nanometers (nm) wavelength ...

in 1984.

External links

* http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/16710-UOC0xx/native/16710.pdf * http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985EnTR........15. Inertial confinement fusion research lasers Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory {{tech-stub

See also

External links