The National Ignition Facility: Transition to Target Shooter
The National Ignition Facility (NIF), currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is a stadium-sized facility containing a 192-beam, 1.8-Megajoule, 500-Terawatt, ultraviolet laser system together with a 10-meter diameter target chamber with room for nearly 100 experimental diagnostics. When completed, NIF will be the world's largest and most energetic laser experimental system, providing an international center to study inertial confinement fusion and the physics of matter at extreme energy densities and pressures. NIF's 192 energetic laser beams will compress fusion targets to conditions required for thermonuclear burn, liberating more energy than required to initiate the fusion reactions. Other NIF experiments will allow the study of physical processes at temperatures approaching 10{sup 8} K and 10{sup 11} Bars, conditions that exist naturally only in the interior of stars, planets and in nuclear weapons. NIF is now entering the first phases of its laser commissioning program. This paper provides a detailed look the NIF laser systems and the results of recent laser commissioning shots. We discuss plans for experiments using the first laser beams of NIF and plans for future uses of NIF, including short pulse laser capability on NIF for high energy, high brightness radiographic x-ray backlighters for physics experiments of importance to the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 15006530
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-CONF-155581-REV-1; TRN: US200411%%268
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 14th Biennial NEDPC Conference, Albuquerque, NM (US), 10/20/2003--10/24/2003; Other Information: PBD: 24 Nov 2003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
The National Ignition Facility: The World's Largest Laser
The National Ignition Facility High-Energy Ultraviolet Laser System