This volume of the LLE Review, covering the period January-March 1996, contains three articles related to spherical implosions and their diagnosis, one article that provides an analysis of laser-plasma interactions, and three articles on advanced technologies developed at LLE.

This volume of the LLE Review, covering the period October-December 1995, contains a description of the generation and characterization of continuous, deep-surface-relief phase plates that are more efficient and versatile than previous designs. The LLE program plan has scheduled a number of enhancements to OMEGA`s performance and uniformity, the first of which is the implementation of these new distributed phase plates. Other articles in this volume include the discussion of an x-ray diagnostic method to measure shell-fuel mixing, the theoretical analysis of ablation-front stability, a description of a major subsystem in the OMEGA control system software, a study of the population inversions in intensely pumped Nd:YLF, and a description of a new ultrafast laser system and its uses.

This volume contains articles detailing several nonlinear processes associated with lasers and their use, as well as an article describing the computer control systems necessary to maintain and operate a large laser system such as the 60-beam OMEGA laser. The specific topics discussed in this issue include stimulated scattering in laser plasmas, power exchange between interacting laser beams, charged particles interacting with a laser pulse, thermal equilibration of optically excited states, an overview of the laser control system software in OMEGA, and a technique for cancellation of the nonlinear phase accumulation in short-pulse lasers.

This volume of the LLE Review, covering the period of July-September 1996, includes a description of an important experiment carried out on OMEGA by researchers from LANL, LLNL, and LLE to demonstrate the feasibility of using OMEGA for indirect drive. Additional topics include tetrahedral hohlraums, the speckle properties of phase- converted laser beams, design criteria for SSD phase modulators, and the design of slab amplifiers. Highlights of the research presented in this issue are (1) Results from the proof-of-principle indirect- drive experiments in which up to 40 OMEGA beams were used to irradiate cylindrical hohlraums. Nova results were reproduced, and new capabilities not available on other lasers were demonstrated. (2) A discussion of tetrahedral hohlraums (spherical hohlraums with four laser entrance holes) as a means of achieving better capsule irradiation uniformity. Tetrahedral hohlraums also allow the use of all 60 OMEGA beams and may provide an alternate route to ignition on the NIF. (3) An analysis of the residual target irradiation nonuniformity due to the fine laser speckle remaining on the beam after being phase converted by the DPP`s. A model shows how a uniformly ablating plasma atmosphere reduces the speckle contribution to the effective time-averaged irradiation nonuniformity. (4) A …