World's largest laser gears up for ignition experiments

10-Mar-2009 - USA

Construction of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest and highest-energy laser system, was essentially completed on Feb. 26, when technicians at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where the laser is located, fired the first full system shot to the center of the NIF target chamber.

The test was the first time all 192 laser beams converged simultaneously in the 10-meter-diameter chamber. NIF has met all of its project completion criteria except for official certification of project completion by the U.S. Department of Energy, due by March 31.

"This a major milestone for the greater NIF team, for the nation and the world," said Edward Moses, LLNL's principal associate director for NIF & Photon Science. "We are well on our way to achieving what we set out to do - controlled, sustained nuclear fusion and energy gain for the first time ever in a laboratory setting."

"Although not required for formal completion of the NIF Project," added Project Director Ralph Patterson, "it is extremely satisfying to wind up the project by firing all beams."

An average of 420 joules of ultraviolet laser energy, known as 3-omega, was achieved for each beamline, for a total energy of more than 80 kilojoules. The energy level will be increased during the next several months, and when all NIF lasers are fired at full energy, they will deliver 1.8 megajoules of ultraviolet energy to a BB-sized target in a 20-nanosecond shaped laser pulse, generating 500 trillion watts of peak power - more than the peak electrical generating power of the entire United States. This is considered more than enough energy to fuse the hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium in the target into helium nuclei (alpha particles) and yield considerably more energy in the process than was required to initiate the reaction.

For the past several weeks scientists and technicians have been conducting readiness tests within the NIF. "The system already has produced 20 times more energy than any other laser system, and will triple that number in the months ahead," Moses said. "NIF is well on its way to producing breakthroughs in science never imagined. Through our readiness testing we will see glimpses of what that future will bring."

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/97985/world-s-largest-laser-gears-up-for-ignition-experiments.html