NIF FACILITY AT LIVERMORE TAKES SMALL STEP TOWARD IGNITION

Officials at the National Ignition Facility took a small step forward in their quest to achieve fusion ignition at the facility earlier this month when the massive laser eclipsed its previous record for neutron yield in cryogenic implosions threefold. More importantly, however, the experiment accurately matched predictions by computer simulation tools, representing a milestone on the path to ignition. According to the lab, approximately 8,000 joules of neutron energy were released when the facility’s 192 laser beams were trained on a pea-sized deuterium-tritium filled capsule, and early calculations revealed that the yield was enhanced by nearly 50 percent when hot plasma in the core of the target began to self-heat. That pushed the laser closer to achieving “alpha burn,” a key milestone en route to ignition. “The yield was significantly greater than the energy deposited in the hot spot by the implosion,” Livermore Principle Associate Director for NIF and Photon Science Ed Moses said in a statement. “This represents an important advance in establishing a self-sustaining burning target, the next critical step on the path to fusion ignition on NIF.”