Ray tracing through the liquid crystal point diffraction interferometer. 1998 summer research program for high school juniors at the University of Rochester`s Laboratory for Laser Energetics: Student research reports

The Omega laser is a system with many different parts that may cause imperfections. There are a multitude of lenses and mirrors, for example, that may not be polished correctly and can cause the laser wave front to have aberrations. The Liquid Crystal Point Diffraction Interferometer (L.C.P.D.I.) is a device whose main purpose is to read the wave front of the laser and measure any aberrations that may be on it. The way the L.C.P.D.I. reads the laser wave front and measures these aberrations is very complicated and has yet to be perfected. A ray-tracing model of the L.C.P.D.I. has been built, which calculates and models the ray trajectories, the optical paths of the rays, the O.P.D. between the object and reference beams, the absorption of the rays in the liquid crystal, and the intensities of each beam. It can predict an actual experiment by manipulating the different parameters of the program. It will be useful in optimization and further development of the L.C.P.D.I. Evidently, it is necessary to develop a liquid crystal solution with an O.D. greater than 0.3, and possibly as high as 2.0. This new solution would be able to reduce the intensity of the object beam sufficiently to make it comparable with the reference beam intensity. If this were achieved, the contrast, or visibility of the fringes would be better, and the interferogram could be used to diagnose the aberrations in the laser beam front. Then the cause of the aberrations could be fixed. This would result in a near-perfect laser front. If this were achieved, then it is possible that laser fusion could be made more efficient and possibly used as an energy source