Abbas Nikroo
Deputy Director for Physics Integration
National Ignition Facility
Abbas Nikroo, Deputy Director for Physics Integration, has an extensive background in the field of high energy density (HED) science, particularly regarding laser target development science and technology as well as target production and applications to HED experiments on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and other high power facilities. He also has many years of program management experience, including instituting high sigma, efficient, and agile operations. Nikroo has nearly 30 years of experience working in this area at NIF and with the other national laboratories and is recognized across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) HED complex as a national and international leader of the target fabrication community.
In his current role, Nikroo is responsible for the interface between Physics and NIF as it relates to the key goals of the integrated program. In coordination with the NIF director and Physics program leads, he ensures priorities are aligned with the plan, while identifying and leading the closure of gaps to ensure the value of NIF is maximized to stakeholders. He also advises the NIF director on high-level shot planning input and evaluation, including overall capability gaps, and in particular, sets the direction for target fabrication that best benefits the program.
From 2015 to 2022, Nikroo managed the Laboratory's consolidated HED and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target fabrication. He led the target effort in 2016 to double high quality and innovative target fabrication for NIF to enable the 400 shots per year milestone. His continued leadership in target production, technology development, and engineering design led to the achievement of precision targets including improvements in diamond capsule quality and metrology that eventually enabled NIF to achieve ignition in 2022 and advances in critical Pu fabrication capabilities.
Before joining LLNL, Nikroo led the target fabrication effort at General Atomics (GA) from 2009 to 2015 after serving almost 14 years as a target fabrication scientist and manager. He was the deputy for NIF Integrated Target Systems from 2006 to 2012 during the National Ignition Campaign and was a member of the ICF Executives from 2009 to 2015.
At GA, he led the development and establishment of production machinery that produced high-quality depleted uranium hohlraums, CH and beryllium capsules, cryogenic components, and the capsule fill tube assembly, all of which are key common components for ignition and other campaigns at NIF. He also managed the production of components for the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics and the Z facility at Sandia National Laboratories.
Nikroo received his Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1990, and his B.S. in physics and a B.A. in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1984.
He received the Fusion Power Associates Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award in 2003 in recognition of his outstanding technical contributions to the technology of inertial fusion energy and his exceptional leadership in the fusion field. In 2012, he received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences award for his many exemplary technical contributions and leadership initiatives in the field of ICF target fabrication techniques. In 2022, he received the Larry Foreman Award for Innovation and Excellence in Target Fabrication and was part of NIF’s Burning Plasma Team that won the American Physical Society’s 2022 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research.
He has received numerous Defense Program Awards of Excellence, Director’s S&T medals, and NIF and Strategic Deterrence (SD) awards in the past 15 years in pursuit of ignition and other major program goals.
