A. Kritcher, D. Schlossberg, C. Weber, C. Young, E. Dewald, A. Zylstra, O. Hurricane, A. Allen, B. Bachmann, K. Baker, S. Baxamusa, T. Braun, G. Brunton, D. Callahan, D. Casey, T. Chapman, C. Choate, D. Clark, J.-M. Di Nicola, L. Divol, M. Edwards, S. Haan, T. Fehrenbach, S. Hayes, D. Hinkel, M. Hohenberger, K. Humbird, O. Jones, E. Kur, B. Kustowski, C. Kong, O. Landen, D. Larson, X. Lepro-Chavez, J. Lindl, B. MacGowan, S. Maclaren, M. Marinak, M. Millot, A. Nikroo, R. Nora, A. Pak, P. Patel, J. Ralph, M. Ratledge, M. Rubery, S. Sepke, M. Stadermann, D. Strozzi, T. Suratwala, R. Tommasini, R. Town, B. Woodworth, B. Van Wonterghem, C. Wild
An exciting use of high powered lasers is to inertially confine fusion plasmas in the laboratory. This presentation describes the first design to achieve controlled fusion target gain exceeding one using high powered lasers in the inertial confinement fusion approach and recent experimental results on the NIF (National Ignition Facility). In these experiments, laser beams incident on the inside of a cylindrical can (Hohlraum) generates an intense x-ray radiation bath that is used to spherically implode pellets containing Deuterium and Tritium. On Dec 5th 2022, the imploded pellet generated more fusion energy (3.15 MJ) than laser energy incident on the target (2.05 MJ), reaching a milestone for the field that was more than six decades in the making. Follow on experiments in this platform using 2.2 MJ of laser energy have generated >5 MJ and >2x target gain.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a 192-beam laser operated as an experimental facility to support its science-based stockpile stewardship program. The facility delivers up to 1.9 MJ UV energy to targets creating temperatures
and pressures only found at the center of stars. The facility routinely conducts experiments
supporting inertial confinement fusion, high energy density stockpile science, national security
applications, and fundamental science. In this talk we will review how complex high energy density
experiments are planned and performed in the world’s largest laser facility including configuring
and aligning the lasers, the target experimental systems and the diagnostics. We will show the
measures we take to safely conduct experiments that create extreme neutron fluxes.
This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344-ABS-LLNL-ABS-815547
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