 These effects became so severe after just the first few amplification stages of early lasers, that it was seen as essentially impossible to exceed the gigawatt level for ICF lasers without destroying the laser itself after just a few shots.In order to improve the quality of the amplified beams, LLNL had started experimenting with the use of spatial filters in the single-beam Cyclops laser, built the previous year.The basic idea was to extend the laser device into a very long "beamline", over which any imperfections that accumulated in the beam would be successively removed after every amplification stage.