skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Experimental achievement and signatures of ignition at the National Ignition Facility

Journal Article · · Physical Review. E
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1] more »;  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [6];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [7];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [8];  [1];  [1];  [1] « less
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  4. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
  5. Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau (France). Laboratoire pour l’utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI)
  6. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Focused Energy, Inc., Austin, TX (United States)
  7. Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States). Lab. for Laser Energetics
  8. Diamond Materials Gmbh, Freiburg (Germany)

An inertial fusion implosion on the National Ignition Facility, conducted on August 8, 2021 (N210808), recently produced more than a megajoule of fusion yield and passed Lawson's criterion for ignition [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)]. Here we describe the experimental improvements that enabled N210808 and present the first experimental measurements from an igniting plasma in the laboratory. Ignition metrics like the product of hot-spot energy and pressure squared, in the absence of self-heating, increased by ~ 35%, leading to record values and an enhancement from previous experiments in the hot-spot energy (~ 3×), pressure (~ 2×), and mass (~ 2×). These results are consistent with self-heating dominating other power balance terms. The burn rate increases by an order of magnitude after peak compression, and the hot-spot conditions show clear evidence for burn propagation into the dense fuel surrounding the hot spot. These novel dynamics and thermodynamic properties have never been observed on prior inertial fusion experiments.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1959535
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-835348; 1054325; TRN: US2312881
Journal Information:
Physical Review. E, Vol. 106, Issue 2; ISSN 2470-0045
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (51)

Record Energetics for an Inertial Fusion Implosion at NIF journal January 2021
Progress toward a self-consistent set of 1D ignition capsule metrics in ICF journal December 2018
Mixing in ICF implosions on the National Ignition Facility caused by the fill-tube journal March 2020
Real-time nuclear activation detectors for measuring neutron angular distributions at the National Ignition Facility (invited) journal April 2021
Mitigation of X-ray shadow seeding of hydrodynamic instabilities on inertial confinement fusion capsules using a reduced diameter fuel fill-tube journal May 2018
Neutron spectrometry—An essential tool for diagnosing implosions at the National Ignition Facility (invited) journal October 2012
On the importance of minimizing “coast-time” in x-ray driven inertially confined fusion implosions journal September 2017
Evidence of Three-Dimensional Asymmetries Seeded by High-Density Carbon-Ablator Nonuniformity in Experiments at the National Ignition Facility journal January 2021
Observation of Hydrodynamic Flows in Imploding Fusion Plasmas on the National Ignition Facility journal September 2021
Relativistic calculation of fusion product spectra for thermonuclear plasmas journal November 1998
Three-dimensional reconstruction of neutron, gamma-ray, and x-ray sources using a cylindrical-harmonics expansion journal March 2021
Diagnosing inertial confinement fusion gamma ray physics (invited) journal October 2010
Onset of Hydrodynamic Mix in High-Velocity, Highly Compressed Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosions journal August 2013
Trending low mode asymmetries in NIF capsule drive using a simple viewfactor metric * journal August 2021
Metrics for implosion performance with enhanced energy coupling on NIF journal October 2021
Effect of the mounting membrane on shape in inertial confinement fusion implosions journal February 2015
The effect of shock dynamics on compressibility of ignition-scale National Ignition Facility implosions journal November 2014
On alpha-particle transport in inertial fusion journal June 2019
Metrics for long wavelength asymmetries in inertial confinement fusion implosions on the National Ignition Facility journal April 2014
The Spatially Distributed Neutron Activation Diagnostic FNADs at the National Ignition Facility journal May 2017
Hotspot conditions achieved in inertial confinement fusion experiments on the National Ignition Facility journal May 2020
A thermodynamic condition for ignition and burn-propagation in cryogenic layer inertially confined fusion implosions journal February 2021
Diagnosing implosion performance at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) by means of neutron spectrometry journal March 2013
Hot-spot mix in large-scale HDC implosions at NIF journal September 2020
The National Ignition Facility neutron time-of-flight system and its initial performance (invited) journal October 2010
Achieving record hot spot energies with large HDC implosions on NIF in HYBRID-E journal July 2021
Understanding the effects of neutron scattering for neutron-yield-isotropy measurements at the NIF journal May 2021
The National Ignition Facility: Transition to a User Facility journal March 2016
Some Criteria for a Power Producing Thermonuclear Reactor journal January 1957
Design of an inertial fusion experiment exceeding the Lawson criterion for ignition journal August 2022
Azimuthal Drive Asymmetry in Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosions on the National Ignition Facility journal April 2020
Impact of Localized Radiative Loss on Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosions journal April 2020
Lawson Criterion for Ignition Exceeded in an Inertial Fusion Experiment journal August 2022
Neutron activation diagnostics at the National Ignition Facility (invited) journal October 2012
Tent-induced perturbations on areal density of implosions at the National Ignition Facilitya) journal May 2015
Approaching a burning plasma on the NIF journal May 2019
Localized mix-induced radiative cooling in a capsule implosion at the National Ignition Facility journal March 2020
A fused silica Cherenkov radiator for high precision time-of-flight measurement of DT γ and neutron spectra (invited) journal October 2018
The first measurements of soft x-ray flux from ignition scale Hohlraums at the National Ignition Facility using DANTE (invited) journal October 2010
Beyond alpha-heating: driving inertially confined fusion implosions toward a burning-plasma state on the National Ignition Facility journal November 2018
Laser Compression of Matter to Super-High Densities: Thermonuclear (CTR) Applications journal September 1972
Model validation for inferred hot-spot conditions in National Ignition Facility experiments journal December 2021
Imaging of high-energy x-ray emission from cryogenic thermonuclear fuel implosions on the NIF journal October 2012
Neutron source reconstruction from pinhole imaging at National Ignition Facility journal February 2014
Development of the indirect‐drive approach to inertial confinement fusion and the target physics basis for ignition and gain journal November 1995
Burning plasma achieved in inertial fusion journal January 2022
An analytic asymmetric-piston model for the impact of mode-1 shell asymmetry on ICF implosions journal June 2020
Understanding asymmetries using integrated simulations of capsule implosions in low gas-fill hohlraums at the National Ignition Facility journal December 2020
Analysis of the neutron time-of-flight spectra from inertial confinement fusion experiments journal November 2015
Design of inertial fusion implosions reaching the burning plasma regime journal January 2022
X-ray shadow imprint of hydrodynamic instabilities on the surface of inertial confinement fusion capsules by the fuel fill tube journal March 2017

Similar Records

Increased compression in HDC-based ablator implosions using modified drive profile
Journal Article · Thu Dec 07 00:00:00 EST 2023 · Physical Review Research · OSTI ID:1959535

Cryogenic thermonuclear fuel implosions on the National Ignition Facility
Journal Article · Tue May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Physics of Plasmas · OSTI ID:1959535

Progress Toward Ignition on the National Ignition Facility
Technical Report · Mon Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · OSTI ID:1959535