Laboratory for Laser Energetics annual report, 1 October 1991--30 September 1992

This is an annual report covering research progress on laser fusion and the OMEGA Upgrade design and development. In laser fusion, line-spectroscopy methods were demonstrated to be useful in diagnosing the core temperature and densities of polymer-shell targets; a theoretical analysis of nonlocal heat transport effects on filamentation of light in plasmas confirms that the principle mechanism driving filamentation is kinetic thermal rather than ponderomotive; a new method (spatial beam deflection) to produce laser pulses of arbitrary shape was developed; laser-plasma x-ray emission was measured using photodiode arrays; experiments on long-scale-length plasmas have shown that smoothing by spectral dispersion has proven effective in reducing Raman scattering; a method for increasing the gas-retention time of polymer shell targets was developed by overcoating them with aluminum. Experiments relating to the OMEGA Upgrade are described