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Before the shot: A copper shield exposes the target, which is mounted in the cryogenic target positioning device.
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The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announced that the National
Ignition Facility (NIF) recently completed its first integrated ignition
experiment. In the test, the 192-beam laser system fired 1 megajoule of laser
energy into its first cryogenically layered capsule, raising the drive energy
by a factor of thirty over experiments previously conducted at the Omega laser
at the University
of Rochester. With the
completion of this test, NIF is beginning its next phase of the campaign to
culminate in fusion ignition tests.
“NIF is an example of what the NNSA labs do best,” said NNSA
Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs Don Cook. “We are bringing together
the best minds in science, engineering and technology to solve some of the
nation’s greatest challenges.
With NIF, the nation has a critically important asset that
supports our national security priorities, pushes the frontiers of science and
discovery, and carries the potential for critical advances in energy security.”
NIF, the world’s largest and highest-energy laser system, is
expected to be the first laser system to demonstrate reliable fusion ignition in
a laboratory environment. When NIF’s lasers fire, more than one million joules
of ultraviolet energy are focused into a pencil-eraser-sized gold cylinder that
contains a peppercorn-sized plastic capsule filled with the hydrogen fuel.
The experiment demonstrated the integration of the complex
systems required for an ignition campaign. This target was filled with a
mixture of tritium, hydrogen and deuterium tailored to enable the most
comprehensive physics, a necessary step on the path to demonstrating fusion
ignition. All systems operated successfully, and 26 target diagnostics
participated in the shot.
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After the shot: The remains of the target assembly.
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“From both a system integration and from a physics point of
view, this experiment was outstanding,” said Ed Moses, Director of the National
Ignition Facility. “This is a great moment in the 50-year history of inertial
confinement fusion. It represents significant progress in our ability to field
complex experiments in support of our NNSA Stockpile Stewardship, Department of
Defense, fundamental science and energy missions.”
NIF was built as a part of the NNSA’s program to ensure the
safety, security and effectiveness of the nuclear weapons stockpile without
underground testing. With NIF, scientists will be able to evaluate key
scientific assumptions in current computer models, obtain previously
unavailable data on how materials behave at temperatures and pressures like
those in the center of a star, and help validate NNSA’s supercomputer
simulations by comparing code predictions against laboratory observations.
Other missions include advancements in fusion energy technology and enabling
scientists to better understand the makeup of stars in the universe and planets
both within and outside our solar system.
The experimental program to achieve fusion and energy gain,
known as the National Ignition Campaign, is a partnership among LLNL, the
Laboratory for Laser Energetics at University
of Rochester, Los
Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, and General Atomics.
Other contributors include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the
Atomic Weapons Establishment (UK), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (France), and
many others.
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