In this issue: some of CASC’s contributions to making controlled laboratory fusion possible at the National Ignition Facility (NIF)
(Download Image)CASC Newsletter | Vol 13 | July 2023
In This Issue:
- From the Director
- Retrospective: CASC Collaborations to Improve Algorithms for Laser Plasma Interaction Simulation at NIF
- Collaborations: Debris and Shrapnel Modeling for NIF
- Lab Impact: Improving the Modeling of Radiation Transport in Hohlraum Simulations at NIF
- Advancing the Discipline: Topological Data Analysis and Visualization to Support Complex NIF Simulations and Surrogate Modeling
- Machine Learning & Applications: Predictive Modeling Techniques for Nanosecond-Laser Damage Growth in Fused Silica Optics
From the Director
Contact: hittinger1 [at] llnl.gov (Jeff Hittinger)
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Confucius
At 1 a.m. on the morning of December 5, 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) had a significant breakthrough: the inertial confinement of a compressed target was just good enough to initiate thermonuclear burn. For the first time, humanity achieved net gain from a controlled fusion reaction within a laboratory; the lasers delivered 2.05 MJ of energy, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output. This achievement—over in the blink of an eye (tens of nanoseconds)—was the result of over two decades of work on NIF, six decades after John Nuckolls conceived of the possibility of laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF). We congratulate our current and former colleagues across the Lab for this tremendous achievement. Read more...
