News

High-Intensity Laser Research Discussed at ICUIL 2014

The International Conference on Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers (ICUIL) 2014, co-chaired by NIF&PS Chief Technology Officer Chris Barty, was held Oct. 12-17 in Goa, India. The meeting was the sixth in the ICUIL series, which began in 2004 and was organized initially by LLNL. The meeting convenes representatives from all of the major high-intensity laser laboratories around the world to discuss the...

LLNL to Play Key Role in 10-Petawatt Laser Project

LLNL has again been selected to support the development and construction of an ultra-intense laser system for the European Union’s Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines facility (ELI-Beamlines) in the Czech Republic.

LLNL’s Phase-Shifting Diffraction Interferometer Has Many Uses

Phase-shifting diffraction interferometer (PSDI) technology developed at LLNL during the 1990s is now being put to a number of uses in support of NIF target development and optics inspection.

NIF’s 'Formula One' Model Receives Operational Excellence Award

An operations model based on the Formula One pit-crew model was developed by the NIF Team in 2014 to improve shot turnaround efficiency and enable a new scheduling paradigm.

Operational Improvements Boost NIF’s Productivity

Planning, scheduling, and efficiency changes designed to enhance NIF’s productivity have resulted in a continuous increase in the number of experiments NIF was able to conduct during Fiscal Year 2014.

NIF Researcher at the Frontiers of Engineering

Rebecca Dylla-Spears, a chemical engineer in NIF’s Target Systems and Optics Technology group, had a chance to collaborate with the nation’s top mid-career engineers from industry, academia and government from Sept. 11 to 13. She was selected to represent LLNL at the National Academy of Engineering’s 20th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. The event in Irvine, California...

MIT’s Mike Rosenberg Earns 2nd NIF-based Ph.D.

Mike Rosenberg, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate student who has worked on NIF experiments since they began, recently defended his thesis as part of the NIF PhD thesis program. Rosenberg’s is the second thesis based on NIF data; former MIT student Dan Casey, now an LLNL scientist, completed his PhD in 2012. Rosenberg’s NIF data focuses on exploding pusher shots of...

Surrogate Capsule Experiments Study Gas-shell Mix in NIF Implosions

A NIF experimental campaign using surrogate targets to study the degree of mixing of target capsule shell material into the fuel during implosions was described by LLNL researchers and collaborators in a Physics of Plasmas paper published online on Sept. 9. The experiments used deuterated plastic (CD) "symcap" (symmetry capsule) targets filled with tritium gas, a powerful new NIF...

Susana Reyes Assumes Chair of ANS Fusion Energy Division

LLNL nuclear engineer Susana Reyes has assumed the 2014-15 chairmanship of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Fusion Energy Division following her election as vice-chair in 2012. Reyes has more than 12 years of experience in international fusion projects. She joined LLNL in 2001 to pursue her interest in fusion science and worked on the safety analysis of inertial fusion energy power plant...

NIF Experiments Mimic Atmospheric Blast Effects

The results of NIF experiments designed to simulate the effects of atmospheric explosions, both in the air and on the ground, were reported by LLNL researchers and colleagues in a Review of Scientific Instruments paper published online on Sept. 26. In the Energy Partitioning/Energy Coupling (EPEC) experiments, conducted in support of NIF’s National Security Applications mission, a source...

NIF Target Milestones and Key Partnerships Celebrated

Two important milestones achieved by the NIF&PS and Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) directorates’ Target Fabrication Team and their key partnerships were celebrated on Sept. 19. Target Fabrication Manager Alex Hamza kicked off the celebration by announcing the first milestone: This summer, the team built the 10,000th target for the OMEGA Laser Facility at the University of Rochester’s...

LLNL Hosts Diagnostic Working Group Meeting

A National Diagnostic Working Group meeting was held at the Laboratory Sept. 9-11 to develop a roadmap for diagnostics required on the major Department of Energy inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facilities for the next five years. This was the ninth meeting of a national diagnostic working group. Recent meetings have focused on coordinating diagnostic efforts on NIF, the Z Facility at...

Demand Grows for NIF’s Versatile X-ray Spectrometer

Researchers are enthusiastic to take advantage of the recently commissioned NIF X-ray Spectrometer (NXS) for a variety of new time-resolved, high-resolution spectroscopic experiments on NIF.

Going from RAGS to Riches

The story of NIF’s Radiochemical Analysis of Gaseous Samples (RAGS) is a true trash-to-treasure tale, turning debris from the NIF Target Chamber into valuable data that helps shape future experiments.

John Edwards Receives Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award

John Edwards, associate program director for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and high energy density (HED) science and the NIF&PS ICF program leader, is a recipient of a 2014 Fusion Power Associates (FPA) Leadership Award. FPA Leadership Awards have been given annually since 1980 in recognition of outstanding leadership qualities in accelerating the development of fusion as a commercial...

A Productive Summer for NIF&PS Summer Scholars

Thirty-five NIF & Photon Science summer interns from as far away as Japan and South Korea spent the summer at LLNL working with mentors on projects ranging from material science to physics, mathematics, and a variety of engineering disciplines. The enthusiastic and talented Summer Scholars included U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen, ROTC cadets, and undergraduate and graduate students from across...

Meeting Discusses Planning for ICF-HED Diagnostics

Warren Hsing from NIF & Photon Science, Joe Kilkenny from General Atomics, and Craig Sangster from LLE recently visited CEA (the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission) and AWE to discuss future collaborations in diagnostic development. They met with Charles Lion, Director of CEA’s Simulation Program, Kevin Oades, head of diagnostics at the AWE’s Orion Laser, and other...

Mike Dunne Presents Plenary Talk at Optics+Photonics Conference

Mike Dunne, NIF&PS director of laser fusion energy, gave the opening plenary talk at the SPIE Optics+Photonics conference in San Diego on Aug. 17. The annual conference is the largest international, multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting in North America. During his presentation, given to a standing-room-only audience of about 650, Dunne discussed the current status of the...

NIF Wins Over DOE’s Instagram Followers

NIF Operations Manager Bruno Van Wonterghem’s "Takeover" of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Instagram photo feed on Aug. 15 was one of the more popular events on the @DOE Instagram site (DOE sometimes turns control of the site over to one of its national laboratories for a day). The posts generated 820 "favorites" and 47 comments on the Energy and Livermore Lab accounts. The DOE account...

Next-generation Petawatt Laser Project Takes Shape at LLNL

Last year LLNL was awarded more than $45 million to develop and deliver a state-of-the-art laser system for the European Union’s Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines facility, under construction in the Czech Republic. Nearly a year into the project, much progress has been made, and all contract milestones to date have been delivered on schedule.