Spotlight on:
Experimental Highlights
NIF experiments using a hohlraum shaped like a rugby ball have significantly boosted the amount of laser-induced energy absorbed by an inertial confinement fusion fuel capsule Read more...
LLNL, Florida A&M University, Morehouse College, and UC Merced have formed the Consortium for High Energy Density Science under a grant from the National Nuclear Security Administration to diversify the pipeline of students who pursue careers in this field.
Read more... For Tom Epperly, writing software is both a lifelong avocation and a hobby. So, working on a major redesign of NIF’s Virtual Beam Line code is a dream come true.
Read more... Nerd Bowl II is set for Jan. 26, with LLNL’s Lazer Cats seeking flag football glory against teams from Sandia National Laboratories/California, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Facebook. This year’s Lab entry is a fusion of two teams from last year.
Read more... Data acquired in NIF experiments are helping weapon designers at LLNL assess replacement options for aged materials in the W80-4 warhead.
Read more... A team of physicists and Target Fabrication designers has devised a “two-for-one” NIF diagnostic platform for measuring the strength of materials under extreme pressure.
Read more... LLNL scientists’ work with the Trinity supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory and machine learning could disrupt 40 years of assumptions about inertial confinement fusion.
Read more... December 2018
Discovery Science Program researchers seeking to explore the physics of far-flung corners of the universe also have inspired many novel or enhanced scientific measurement tools now used at NIF.
Read more... NIF&PS has delivered a first-of-its-kind, high-power, fiber-based sodium laser guide star to the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Read more... The NIF & Photon Science Directorate was well represented at the recent 60th annual American Physical Society (APS) Division of Plasma Physics meeting, which included ten invited talks by LLNL researchers.
Read more... NIF and General Atomics engineers have created an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) fuel capsule with a 2-micron-diameter fill tube—and along the way, found a solution to a “Bay Bridge”-like dilemma that could have dramatically slowed the process of fabricating NIF capsules.
Read more... Hoping to inspire the next generation of scientists, NIF’s STEM Day tour guides shared their personal journeys to show how they came to work at the Lab.
Read more... In December 1997, workers at the NIF construction site, while excavating for a utility trench some 30 feet below ground level, unearthed the bones of a prehistoric mammoth.
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