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Adding an optimized void structure (top right) counteracts a shockwave-induced instability, reducing jetting (bottom right) that can interfere with inertial confinement fusion. Without this void, significant jetting occurs (bottom left). (Image: Strucka et al.)

Looking into the void to cancel out material instabilities

Picture two materials sandwiched together. The boundary between them may appear flat, but, in reality, it is full of tiny bumps and dents. Suddenly, the materials are hit with a shockwave. If that wave hits a bump in the material interface, it slows down. If it hits a dent, it accelerates forward. This imbalance creates fast, narrow jets of material — called the Richtmyer…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has announced five research teams selected for awards through the Lab’s FY26 Academic Collaboration Team annual call for proposals.

Weapons Physics & Design ACT awards drive university partnerships and research

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has announced five research teams selected for awards through the Lab’s FY26 Academic Collaboration Team (ACT) annual call for proposals. Awards support university research partners for up to three years to perform research in collaboration with Lab scientists and offer an important way to build long-term connections with…

Big Ideas Lab podcast is marking a new milestone with the release of its 50th episode

All 50 episodes of the Big Ideas Lab now available on LLNL podcast page

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Big Ideas Lab podcast marks a new milestone with the release of its 50th episode. The latest episode, delving into high-performance computing for energy innovation, can be found alongside the entire series on the new LLNL podcast page. Since its debut in September 2024, the Big Ideas Lab has aimed to rethink how science…

Wyatt Larrinaga studies how proteins bind to radioactive elements during a graduate student fellowship at LLNL. (Graphic: Dan Herchek and Jeremy Gardner / LLNL)

Grad student Wyatt Larrinaga explores how proteins bind to radioactive elements for fellowship at LLNL

As a fifth-year graduate student at the Pennsylvania State University, Wyatt Larrinaga investigates how proteins can be used to separate lanthanides. These elements, plus two others, make up the rare earth elements that are critical for technology, defense and a robust domestic energy supply. But somewhere along the way, Larrinaga grew interested in branching out. Or,…

Artist’s depiction of NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft exploring the icy, hydrocarbon-rich landscapes of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. (Courtesy image: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

LLNL delivers advanced gamma-ray spectrometer for NASA’s Dragonfly mission to explore Titan

Hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth, the landscape of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, bears a striking resemblance to our own planet — but with dunes of hydrocarbon sands rather than silica sands, and rain, rivers, lakes and seas of liquid methane and ethane rather than liquid water. The NASA Dragonfly mission is set to explore this world in unprecedented detail…

Join LLNL for “Science at the State” on Saturday, April 11 featuring the presentation " Cosmic Treasure Hunt: Finding Stardust in Meteorites," followed by the screening of the film Ice Age Collision Course.

Science at the State invites students on a cosmic hunt for stardust in meteorites on April 11

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is again partnering with the State Theatre in Modesto for the next “Science at the State” event, happening on Saturday, April 11. This year’s program, titled “Cosmic Treasure Hunt: Finding Stardust in Meteorites,” will feature a scientific presentation paired with the family-friendly film Ice Age Collision Course (rated PG)…

The magnetic microcalorimetry team operates a dilution refrigerator used for ultra-sensitive magnetic microcalorimetry. Their work enables the precise measurement of nuclear decay events at extremely low temperatures. From left to right: Inwook Kim, Chang Lee, Geon-Bo Kim (corresponding author), Ryan Wood (first author) and Nathan Hines.

Cryogenic micro-calorimetry offers a novel material-dating method for nuclear forensics and safeguards

The moment nuclear material is produced, processed or purified, it sets off a hidden countdown, marked by the half-life of its radioactive atoms as they begin to decay. For scientists tracking the origins of these substances, decoding this natural clock is crucial for verifying material histories in support of global security efforts. In a new study published in the…

Wren Carr, a new SPIE Fellow, has dedicated his career to optics at the National Ignition Facility. Photo by Blaise Douros.

LLNL optics expert Wren Carr named SPIE Fellow

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Wren Carr was recently selected as a Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. He is the science and technology group leader for National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser-induced damage and mitigation science. “I feel honored to be recognized by SPIE for my leadership, mentorship and technical…

In a new study, researchers genetically engineered the metabolic pathways in yeast to consume sugar and produce oxalic acid. The latter can be used to separate rare earth elements from other metals. (Graphic: Dan Herchek/LLNL)

Engineered yeast produce acids needed to refine rare-earth elements

From mining to magnet manufacturing, the process for refining rare-earth elements is complex and intensive. The supply chain for such critical materials is dominated by China — and so is the oxalic acid needed for the separation and purification stages. To move toward a U.S. supply chain for rare-earth element recovery, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and computational engineers report on using machine learning to analyze electronic health records of more than 11,000 veterans diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

LLNL-led study uses machine learning, veterans’ health records to identify ALS drug-repurposing candidate

A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)-led team of scientists and computational engineers has identified several existing medications that may be associated with longer survival in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), using one of the largest electronic health record datasets ever assembled for ALS. Published in The Lancet Digital Health, the study…

Shaun Kerr and Dean Rusby have refined the MeV x-ray generation of NIF’s Advanced Radiographic Capability, leading to unprecedented imaging of dense materials. Photo by Blaise Douros.

Advanced Radiographic Capability achievements featured in Physics of Plasmas

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the hottest place on earth for the briefest of moments during an experiment. Now, it can be one of the brightest places thanks to the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC), NIF’s laser-within-the-laser. How this is possible and how it’s measured is detailed in the cover paper of the December 2025…

LLNL scientist Gianpaolo Carosi (right) discusses the inner workings of the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment. Expertise in this cavity technology (shown here plated in copper) is enhancing current efforts in quantum computing.

Finding resonance: How LLNL expertise is amplifying collaboration in quantum computing

In November, the Department of Energy Office of Science renewed the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center (SQMS), hosted by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, with $125 million over the next five years to accelerate breakthroughs in quantum information science. The investment continues to unite more than 300 experts from 43 partner institutions across…

Students performing experiments

STEM San Joaquin celebrates third year of inspiring young minds

STEM San Joaquin marked its third anniversary on Saturday, Nov. 15, at the University of the Pacific (UOP) in Stockton. Co-sponsored by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and UOP, the annual event welcomed students in grades 6–9 for a day of hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) exploration. The conference is organized by a dedicated team of…

Researchers on stage accepting an award

LLNL, UT & UCSD win Gordon Bell Prize with exascale tsunami forecasting

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Oden Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) on Nov. 20 were awarded the prestigious 2025 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Gordon Bell Prize for developing a real-time tsunami early-warning framework…

Examples of rocket plume simulation

Gordon Bell finalist team pushes scale of rocket simulation on El Capitan

Researchers used Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) exascale supercomputer El Capitan to perform the largest fluid dynamics simulation ever — surpassing one quadrillion degrees of freedom in a single computational fluid dynamics (CFD) problem. The team focused the effort on rocket–rocket plume interactions. El Capitan is funded by the National Nuclear Security…

Team responsible for designing 3D printed ion trap

Miniaturized ion traps show promise of 3D printing for quantum-computing hardware

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of California (UC) Berkeley, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara have miniaturized quadrupole ion traps for the first time with 3D printing — a breakthrough in one of the most promising approaches to building a large-scale quantum computer. Quadrupole ion traps have four electrode poles that create…

Contributors to The Science of Scale-up

LLNL aims to learn faster with science of scale-up

The science of scale-up enables a faster and more reliable advancement of technology from research and development through commercial deployment. Using techniques like computer modeling and advanced manufacturing, teams can compress the technology scale-up timeline, which can include making something bigger, more numerous, faster or more repeatably. Accelerating scale-up…

Rachel Gorelik and Golam Azom

Modeling materials defects: LLNL interns explore nanotubes and batteries

For more than 20 years, the Computational Chemistry and Materials Science (CCMS) internship program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has offered students the opportunity to develop and apply computational methods to predict, analyze and optimize the properties of materials for a broad range of applications. “Many of our interns come back to LLNL as a…

Cole Pruitt

LLNL physicist Cole Pruitt honored with early-career achievement award

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist Cole Pruitt has been awarded the 2025 Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers in theoretical nuclear physics. The national honor recognizes early-career scientists who have made significant contributions to nuclear physics research at or in connection with FRIB. Pruitt, a…

Students in lab

2025 LLNL summer programs inspire the next generation of innovators

This summer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) hosted science education programs that provided students with hands-on experience related to several LLNL research themes. The science education offerings for this summer included three standout programs: the Manufacturing Workshop, STEM with Phones and the Biotech Summer Experience. The Manufacturing Workshop The…