Automated Target Measurements Contribute to LLNL's Ignition Success

An advanced technique for characterizing high-quality target capsules for NIF experiments has played an important role in LLNL's recent success in repeatedly achieving fusion ignition.

LLNL Researchers Uncover Key to Resolving ICF Hohlraum Drive Deficit

LLNL researchers made advancements in resolving the long-standing “drive-deficit” problem in indirect-drive ICF experiments. This could pave the way for more accurate predictions and improved performance of fusion experiments at NIF.

When Experiments Go Quiet: Maintaining the National Ignition Facility

When the lasers at NIF stop firing, the facility is anything but quiet. Facility maintenance and refurbishment teams work to keep NIF as finely tuned as a Formula One racecar (story includes a video).

College Students Learn Valuable Lessons Building Robots for NIF

When NIF needed a way to safely patrol a dangerous high-voltage area, a team of University of California, Davis engineering students built SAPPHIRE the robot.

Automated Software Optimized NIF Shot Efficiency, Versatility

For NIF experiments, the goal is not just to measure the interaction between the target and the laser beams. Researchers also need to understand what’s happening to the material in the target and how it changes over time.

Target Fabrication Precision Applied to Machining Operations Move

Machining operations for Target Fabrication were upgraded and consolidated without missing a minute of the continuous work of designing and delivering targets to the world’s largest laser.

Bridging the Idea-to-Industry Gap

A neodymium-doped fiber amplifier that could double the capacity of information-carrying fiber-optic cables is among the many LLNL-developed inventions awarded technology commercialization funding.

LaserNetUS Opening New Frontiers of Laser Science Research

LaserNetUS, a network of 10 ultra-powerful laser facilities including LLNL’s Jupiter Laser Facility, has made great strides toward strengthening the nation’s position in high-intensity lasers and laser-plasma research.

New Laser Testing System Brings NIF Back to the Future

NIF’s recommissioned Precision Diagnostic System has advanced diagnostic tools that help researchers experiment with potential methods to increase laser performance.

New Machine-Learning Tactic Sharpens NIF Shot Predictions

A new machine learning-based approach that combines simulation and experimental data for ICF experiments is more accurate than simulations alone.

Target Fabrication Team Helped Speed NIF’s Rapid Restart

The LLNL Target Fabrication Team’s efforts to quickly resume production of targets was a key to the timely restart of NIF experiments following the 2020 pandemic shutdown.

COVID-19 Protocols Keep NIF on Track

The health and safety protocols that let NIF resume experiments shortly after regional COVID-19 shelter-in-place directives took effect remain in place, helping NIF maintain a regular slate of experiments that are essential to national security.

NIF People Spotlight: Computer Scientist Jarom Nelson

Computer scientist Jarom Nelson has been working on the development and release of Virtual Beamline++ (VBL++). He also has his creative outlets: musical theater and choral singing.

Keeping NIF’s Symphony of Controls in Tune

NIF control systems workers stand with pride alongside scientists and researchers to ensure the facility is able to carry out its vital mission of helping ensure the nation’s nuclear stockpile is safe, secure, and reliable, and that its systems are primed to keep advancing the boundaries of high energy density science, including the pursuit of ignition.

NIF Hits 10,000 Optics Recycle Milestone

The NIF Optics Mitigation Team recently celebrated a significant milestone — the 10,000th optic processed by the Optics Mitigation Facility since NIF’s Optics Recycle Loop process launched in 2009.

Rugby Hohlraum Kicks Up NIF’s Energy Efficiency

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 (ICF) fuel capsule. The findings open new pathways in research toward self-sustaining fusion reactions.

Automation Speeds and Smooths NIF’s Optics Recycle Loop

LLNL’s Optics Mitigation Facility (OMF) operators can accomplish repairs that used to take highly trained technicians an average of 6,000 mouse clicks or keystrokes and 6.3 work-hours in just a fraction of that effort.

Crash-Proof Virtual Flying Through NIF

In apparent defiance of the laws of physics, LLNL design engineer Paul Bloom leads flying tours through the National Ignition Facility from only three feet off the ground. Swooping visitors through the laser beampath at up to a hundred meters per second, he has turned NIF mechanical design on its head with his virtual reality tools.

3D Printing Can Speed Target Production

Producing target components for high-energy laser systems like NIF and the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester is poised to take a big step forward in speed and flexibility, thanks to recent advances in 3D printing. An additive manufacturing process called two-photon polymerization direct laser writing (2PP DLW) is enabling the fabrication of "on-demand" foam reservoir targets used to...

New Power Supplies Will Keep NIF on Target

To keep firing its lasers at a rate of more than a shot per day, NIF must have a robust and reliable power conditioning system, or PCS. The team that keeps the power flowing to NIF’s lasers is taking steps to insure that the facility will have the energy it needs for target shots well into the future.