From Livermore Lab: "Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility achieves record laser energy in pursuit of fusion ignition"

Breanna Bishop
03/21/2012

“The National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world’s most energetic laser, surpassed a critical milestone in its efforts to meet one of modern science’s greatest challenges: achieving fusion ignition and energy gain in a laboratory setting. NIF’s 192 lasers fired in perfect unison, delivering a record 1.875 million joules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to the facility’s target chamber center.

This historic laser shot involved a shaped pulse of energy 23 billionths of a second long that generated 411 trillion watts (TW) of peak power (1,000 times more than the United States uses at any instant in time).

The record-breaking shot was made March 15.

‘This event marks a key milestone in the National Ignition Campaign’s drive toward fusion ignition,’ said NIF Director Edward Moses. ‘While there have been many demonstrations of similar equivalent energy performance on individual beams or quads during the completion of the NIF project, this is the first time the full complement of 192 beams has operated at this sound barrier.’”

Control room staff at the National Ignition Facility monitor the progress of the world’s most energetic laser shot on March 15. From left: Rodrigo Miramontes-Ortiz, Dean LaTray, Scott Phillip Rogers, Dean Steven Felzkowski. Photos by Damien Jemison/NIF

See the full article here.

Operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration

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