VIEW OF THE OMEGA-24 BEAM LINES. ULTRAVIOLET LASER BEAMS HAVE BEEN SUPERIMPOSED ONTO THE PHOTOGRAPH.

THE 24-BEAM, 12-TERAWATT OMEGA LASER WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED TO PRODUCE POWERFUL INFRARED LASER BEAMS. EXPERIMENTS LATERSHOWED THAT ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT WOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE IN PRODUCING FUSION REACTIONS, SO RESEARCHERS DEVELOPED A WAY TO CONVERT THE LASER LIGHT PRODUCED BY OMEGA FROM INFRARED TO ULTRAVIOLET USING POTASSIUM DIHYDROGEN PHOSPHATE (KDP) CRYSTALS. THE OMEGA LASER ORIGINALLY OPERATED AT A WAVE- LENGTH OF 1,054 NANOMETERS (NM), CONVERSION TO 351-NM OPERATION WAS COMPLETED IN 1985. IN THE LASER FUSION PROCESS, A HIGH-POWER PULSED LASER SYSTEM IS USED TO COMPRESS AND HEAT A MINUTE FUEL PELLET CONTAINING DEUTERIUM-TRITIUM, A FORM OF HYDROGEN GAS, CAUSING THE HYDROGEN NUCLEII TO FUSE AND TO RELEASE ENERGY. THE SHORT-TERM OBJECTIVE OF THE LLE PROGRAM IS TO DEMONSTRATE THE OMEGA SYSTEM'S DRIVE UNIFORMITY AND TO COMPRESS TARGETS TO DENSITIES GREATER THAN 20 GRAMS PER CUBIC CENTIMETER BY MID-1987, THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO DEMONSTRATE INERTIAL FUSION'S FEASIBILITY AS AN ENERGY SOURCE.