Science on the NIF
Last March, a group of scientists convened at the University of California, Berkeley, to discuss the potential scientific applications of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) - a 192-beam, neodymium glass laser that will be used to obtain the high-energy physics data needed to maintain the nation`s nuclear stockpile. The objective of the gathering was to identify areas of research in which the NIF could be used to advance knowledge in the physical sciences and to define a tentative program of high-energy laser experiments. The scientists determined that the most effective scientific applications of the NIF would be in astrophysics, hydrodynamics, high-pressure physics, and plasma physics. In astrophysics, the NIF would give scientists the ability to synthesize and analyze the plasmas that occur at all stages of stellar evolution. In hydrodynamics, it would enable them to investigate flow problems under conditions that cannot be obtained by the conventional wind tunnel or shock tube. In high-pressure physics, it would allow scientists to investigate material behavior at pressures from 1 to 100 terapascals and temperatures up to a few hundred electron volts so that they could validate their theoretical models of material behavior. Scientists would also be able to convert NIF laser energy to a wide variety of x-ray and particle sources needed to address important questions in basic and applied physics. With the NIF, scientists could push the x-ray laser interferometer to shorter x-ray laser wavelengths so that it would be a more valuable diagnostic tool in the study and characterization of large-scale plasmas. In short, the NIF would enable scientists to explore a previously inaccessible region of physical phenomena that could validate their current theories and experimental observations and provide a foundation for new knowledge of the physical world.
- OSTI ID:
- 50735
- Journal Information:
- Energy and Technology Review, Other Information: PBD: Dec 1994
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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