Shiva and Nova One of the earliest large scale attempts at an ICF driver design was the Shiva laser, a 20-beam neodymium doped glass laser system at LLNL that started operation in 1978. Shiva was a "proof of concept" design intended to demonstrate compression of fusion fuel capsules to many times the liquid density of hydrogen. In this, Shiva succeeded, reaching 100 times the liquid density of deuterium. However, due to the laser's coupling with hot electrons, premature heating of the dense plasma was problematic and fusion yields were low. This failure to efficiently heat the compressed plasma pointed to the use of optical frequency multipliers as a solution that would frequency triple the infrared light from the laser into the ultraviolet at 351 nm. Schemes to efficiently triple the frequency of laser light discovered at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics in 1980 was experimented with in the 24 beam OMEGA laser and the NOVETTE laser, which was followed by the Nova laser design with 10 times Shiva's energy, the first design with the specific goal of reaching ignition.
shiva and nova one of the earliest large scale attempts at an icf driver design was the shiva laser a 20-beam neodymium doped glass laser system at llnl that started operation in 1978 shiva was a "proof of concept" design intended to demonstrate compression of fusion fuel capsules to many times the liquid density of hydrogen in this shiva succeeded reaching 100 times the liquid density of deuterium however due to the laser's coupling with hot electrons premature heating of the dense plasma was problematic and fusion yields were low this failure to efficiently heat the compressed plasma pointed to the use of optical frequency multipliers as a solution that would frequency triple the infrared light from the laser into the ultraviolet at 351 nm schemes to efficiently triple the frequency of laser light discovered at the laboratory for laser energetics in 1980 was experimented with in the 24 beam omega laser and the novette laser which was followed by the nova laser design with 10 times shiva's energy the first design with the specific goal of reaching ignition