Fusion Power Associates Honors LLNL’s Bruno Van Wonterghem

NIF Operations Manager Bruno Van Wonterghem is being honored for "decades of tenacious dedication to scientific and operational excellence" at LLNL.

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).

NIF: An Engineering Marvel

With 7,500 large optics, 26,000 small optics, and more than 66,000 control points, NIF is a remarkable engineering and technology success story.

This giant laser can simulate a planet’s core

A video by Vox and the Center for Matter at Atomic Pressures highlights how NIF is helping scientists explore the “secret inner lives of planets.”

NIF and JLF User Groups Cite HED Science Successes Amid Pandemic

At this year’s meeting of the NIF and JLF user groups, facility leaders cited a number of HED science successes amid the challenges of the pandemic.

Redlining Lasers for Nuclear Fusion

In a Q&A interview with Nature Photonics, NIF’s Operations manager Bruno Van Wonterghem delves into NIF’s laser optics and what to expect next.

Laser Improvements Contributed to Record Fusion Experiment

Part 5: The work of innovative NIF & Photon Science laser system engineering, operations, and optic materials teams prepared NIF for the record-setting Aug. 8 experiment that brought researchers to the threshold of ignition.

LLNL Expands Outreach to HBCUs in Weeklong Event

Building on last year’s successful outreach to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), this year’s LLNL Day was expanded into a virtual LLNL-HBCU career week. Organizers came away pleased with the positive feedback from both students and panelists.

Summer Scholar Intern Pursues Her Passion for Optics

Natalie Shultz, a NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program intern for the past two years, discovered her passion—optics—in a high school physics class. And she’s made it the centerpiece of her studies.

NIF Diagnostics Played Key Role in Fusion Milestone

The National Ignition Facility (NIF)’s highly specialized and sophisticated measuring instruments known as diagnostics were integral to the record-setting inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiment that produced more than 1.3 million joules (MJ) of fusion energy.

Robust New Debris Shields Will Boost NIF’s Shot Rate

Researchers have developed and are now installing high-quality fused silica debris shields to protect NIF's expensive grating debris shields from debris generated by low-cost disposable debris shields. By cutting the rate of optics damage, the new shields are expected to increase NIF’s shot rate and enhance the drive toward fusion ignition.

NIF Engineer Discovers Life’s Lessons on the Road Less Traveled

When NIF&PS structural engineer Brian Berman recovered from an injury and illness that sidelined him for two years, he was determined to take the road less traveled—literally.

NIF Installs New, Improved Shot Setup Tool

When NIF’s CMT (Campaign Management Tool) was finally retired May 3, it marked the culmination of a seven-year design and development cycle to replace the original experiment setup tool known to be complex and cumbersome.

Laser Safety Book Draws from LLNL, NIF Expertise

With lasers for research and commercial applications becoming more common, a new laser safety book taps into LLNL’s expertise on the subject.

NIF’s Laser Energy Will Test Nuclear Survivability in Space

What would happen to a ballistic missile interceptor or a space reentry vehicle if they encountered a nuclear explosion above the Earth’s atmosphere? That’s a question U.S. and United Kingdom defense planners hope to answer with the help of a new NIF capability now under development.

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.

Remote NIF Control Software Updates Lead to Less Stress, More Efficiency

When much of LLNL’s workforce began working remotely due to COVID-19, NIF’s software team adjusted with changes that improved the efficiency, safety, and experience of control system upgrades.

NIF&PS Summer Internship Program Goes on — Virtually

NIF’s Summer Scholar Program went virtual this year thanks to the hard work, quick thinking, and inventiveness of key leaders.

Pandemic Puts BioSafety Officer in Every Corner of the Lab

For 10 years, Carolyn Hall’s job as a LLNL’s BioSafety Officer was about keeping the “bugs” inside laboratories. But at the start of this year, everything changed.