Megajoule
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LMJ (Laser Mégajoule)

• Laser Mégajoule
• [ City ]
• to be completed by the year 2010
• Located at Barp, Gironde (Bordeaux)
• Direction des Applications Militaires (DAM)
• CEA / CESTA (Atomic Energy Commission - Aquitaine Scientific and Technical Studies Center)
• ELIA (Intense lasers and Application ) project.
• Program to Limit Nuclear Testing (PALEN) defence project
• 256 beams in four bundles (240 ?)
• Nd:glass, 150 metric tons, flash pumped
• 4,000 m² of mirrors
• 8,700 m² of Sol-Gel high-resistance anti-reflection (high reflection index) coatings (process devised and implemented at Limeil-Valenton facility)
• beams centered within 50 mm using sensors and computer controlled servo-driven vibration compensators
• Building : 300 ´ 100 m
• frequency tripled by KDP to 350 nm
• 40 cm beam width
• 100 m optical path
• After the master oscillator (mJ-level), there are two amplification stages (J-level), then the main amplifier chain.
• 12 m diameter aluminum target chamber, 500 metric tons
• Target chamber protected by 28 m diameter concrete sphere placed in 60 m diameter cylinder-shaped vessel
• 1.8 MJ, 120 TW (15 ns?)
• Equivalent to NIF
• $1.5 billion U.S.
• The Mégajoule laser heralds a new era, CEA - Press Department - Anne Guichard contains many specifications
• Beam profile simulation from CEA
• Ligne d'Intégration Laser (LIL) an 8 beamline prototype at the CEA CESTA Center, near Bordeaux. completed in early 1998. The LIL laser building is 8,500 m²; the laser hall is 130 m. The LIL target room is 500 m² and 20 m high. The Mégajoule laser will contain 30 units identical to the LIL laser. from Les sciences au service de la défense, CEA see also First international conference on inertial fusion sciences and applications (IFSA `99), University Bordeaux 1, 12-17 September 1999 )
• M.L. Andre, M.L.: 1996, Status of the French Project of Laser Mégajoule (LMJ). from 24th ECLIM, Madrid June 3-7, 1996
• P.A. Holstein et al. : 1996, Target Design for a MJ Laser at Limeil. from 24th ECLIM, Madrid June 3-7, 1996
• rectangular shaped spherical lens by Réosc
• SOLSTIS software analyzes ghost images on Mégajoule laser. (Parasitic images from multiple reflections among hundreds of optical components, see Laser Focus World, Sept 1998)
• Laser/Miró is used for assembly and simulation of Mégajoule, see CEA Technologies magazine, N°42, Jan/Feb 1999.
• Boucheron,J.M.: 1996, Memorandum of Agreement on Co-operation Concerning Nuclear Safety and Security, Washington, 4 June 1996. p.90
• Gamache,C. : 1997, Thèse de l'Université Paris 6 préparée au DL/PP du CEA CEL-V, Etude et réalisation d'un laser 1 joule/10 Hz pompé par laser et large bande pour le Laser Mégajoule.
• Focusing lens created for laser Mégajoule project, Laser Focus World, March 1997
• Cyril Guilot worked on Miró software to simulate an end-of-chain Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor which will construct a phase map of beam distortions which will then be fed to a deformable adaptive optics mirror positioned closer to the beginning of the laser chain.
• CILAS, BIMorph and Stack Array adaptive optics laser cavity 'M1' mirrors
• Engineering physics inside the LMJ target chamber. Daniel Schirmann, Luc Bianchi, Patrick Chadeyron, Roger Courchinoux, Henry Patrick Jacquet, Francois Jequier, Anne Fornier, Jean Claude Gomme, Olivier Heuze, Thierry Lonjaret, Gerard Sibille, Jean Pierre Thebault and the LMJ project team from 17th IEEE/NPSS Symposium on Fusion Engineering October, 1997, San Diego
• Helium-Hydrogen filled targets on Nova (for MIF and LMJ) L. Lours (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, BP 12, 91680 Bruyeres le Chatel, France), C. Decker, R.L. Berger, E.A. Williams, L.S. Suter (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, L-473 P.O. Box 808, Livermore, California 94550, U.S.A.)
• Polishing and testing of laser amplifier discs and spatial filtering lenses for the LIL-LMJ, F. Houbre, REOSC, St. Pierre du Perray, France [3739-08] EOS Symposium on Optical Systems Design and Production, May 1999. Technical Univ. of Berlin, Germany
• LMJ cladding industrialisation, C. Remontet, J. M. Bouchut, Angenieux S.A., Saint-Héand, France; V. Licchesi, Giat Industries, Saint-Etienne, France; J. Duchesne, CEA, Villeneuve Saint-Georges, France EOS Symposium on Optical Systems Design and Production, May 1999. Technical Univ. of Berlin, Germany
• J.M. Reisse, C. Bayer, E. Dattolo, C. Drevet, P.A. Holstein, A. Jolas, D. Juraszek : 1999, BAPS DPP 99. Experimental Studies for LMJ Target Design
• Dates :
  • 1996, Ligne d'Intégration Laser (LIL), intermediate step (8 beams) 1997, LIL building, trials
  • 1998, completed design plans 
  • 1999, LMJ building construction
  • 2006, first experiments at 600 kJ
  • 2010, first experiments at 2 MJ
  • 2012, first ignition experiments on DT fuel.

Comparison between Phebus and Mégajoule

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