what is the national ignition facility

What is the purpose of the National Ignition Facility?

NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain. It supports nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear explosions. NIF is the largest and most powerful ICF device built to date.

How powerful is NIF?

NIF's 192 powerful laser beams, housed in a 10-story building the size of 3 football fields, can deliver more than 2 million joules of ultraviolet laser energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses onto a target about the size of a pencil eraser.

What kind of experiment is done at NIF?

On August 8th NIF researchers conducted a laser fusion experiment which caught immediate attention of the science magazine and the New York Times. Conditions for nuclear fusion are astronomical, as temperatures of several million degrees and high pressure are required to break through the barriers of nuclear repulsion.

Did NIF achieve ignition?

On Aug. 8, 2021, an experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL's) National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ).

What is a normal NIF?

The NIF test is measuring the strength of the diaphragm muscle itself. The average vital capacity for adults not affected by ALS is between 80 – 120%, and a normal NIF is a reading greater than -60 on the pressure meter.

How much energy does the NIF use?

1.8 million joulesDuring full-scale ignition experiments, NIF directs up to 1.8 million joules of ultraviolet laser energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses to the Target Chamber center, probing the conditions that would be needed to achieve the world's first self-sustaining fusion reaction with energy gain in a laboratory setting—in ...

Is NIF operational?

The NIF construction began in 1997, and the facility, which was completed in 2009, is now fully operational. The facility is capable of firing up to 192 laser beams onto a target placed at the center of a 10-m-diameter spherical target chamber. Experiments involving the use of tritium have been underway for some time.

How powerful is the NIF laser?

500 trillion wattsNIF is the world's most precise and reproducible laser system. It precisely guides, amplifies, reflects, and focuses 192 powerful laser beams into a target about the size of a pencil eraser in a few billionths of a second, delivering more than 2 million joules of ultraviolet energy and 500 trillion watts of peak power.

When was NIF built?

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), became operational in march 2009. Planning began in the early 1990s, and ground was broken for the facility on may 29, 1997—12 years to the day before NIF's dedication. NIF is not only the world's highest-energy laser, it's also the largest optical instrument ever built.

Does the US have a fusion reactor?

In December 2020, U.S. fusion researchers embraced the pilot plant in their new long-range plan. Using intense magnetic fields, ITER will trap a plasma of deuterium and tritium—the heavy isotopes of hydrogen—in a doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber and heated to 150 million degrees Celsius.

How far off is nuclear fusion?

This article was originally published in The Oxford Scientist Michaelmas Term 2021 edition, Change. Nuclear fusion is supposedly 'always 30 years away'. It was however first theorised about a hundred years ago.

Are there any fusion reactors in the US?

General Atomics DIII-D National Fusion Facility. Georgia Tech: Fusion Research Center. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: National Ignition Facility. Los Alamos National Laboratory: Fusion Energy Sciences.

How powerful is the NIF laser?

500 trillion wattsNIF is the world's most precise and reproducible laser system. It precisely guides, amplifies, reflects, and focuses 192 powerful laser beams into a target about the size of a pencil eraser in a few billionths of a second, delivering more than 2 million joules of ultraviolet energy and 500 trillion watts of peak power.

How can I check my NIF number in Portugal?

The NIF number in Portugal is a nine-digit number unique to each individual. This number is on all correspondence between yourself and the Portuguese tax authority. You'll also find it on tax cards and the citizen's ID card.

What is NIF accounting?

A note issuance facility (NIF) is a credit arrangement usually provided by a syndicate of commercial banks. Its structure can be used for all kinds of businesses as a vehicle for supporting the issuance of credit notes.

Where is the National Ignition Facility located?

The National Ignition Facility, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

When did the laser ignition campaign end?

The Campaign officially ended in September 2012, at about 1⁄10 the conditions needed for ignition.

How high can a NIF run?

As of January 2010, the NIF could run as high as 1.8 megajoules. Glenzer said that experiments with slightly larger hohlraums containing fusion-ready fuel pellets would begin before May 2010, slowly ramping up to 1.2 megajoules—enough for ignition according to calculations. But first the target chamber needed to be equipped with shields to block neutrons that a fusion reaction would produce. On June 5, 2010 the NIF team fired lasers at the target chamber for the first time in six months; realignment of the beams took place later in June in preparation for further high-energy operation.

How often does NIF shoot?

One key development on NIF since the Ignition Campaign has been an increase in the shot rate. Although designed to allow shots as often as every 4 hours, in 2014 FY NIF performed 191 shots, slightly more than one every two days. This has been continuously improved, and in April 2015 NIF was on track to meet its goal of 300 laser shots in 2015 FY, almost one a day.

What is the NIF?

NIF is the largest and most energetic ICF device built to date, and the largest laser in the world.

Where is the NIF located?

The National Ignition Facility ( NIF ), is a large laser -based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

How many neutrons did the fusion shot produce?

A memo sent on 29 September 2013 by Ed Moses describes a fusion shot that took place at 5:15 a.m. on 28 September. It produced 5×10 15 neutrons, 75% more than any previous shot. Alpha heating, a key component of ignition, was clearly seen. It also noted that the reaction released more energy than the "energy being absorbed by the fuel", a condition the memo referred to as "scientific breakeven". This received significant press coverage as it appeared to suggest a key threshold had been achieved, which was referred to as a "milestone".

Where is the National Ignition Facility located?

National Ignition Facility (NIF), laser-based fusion research device, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, U.S. A major goal for the device is to create a self-renewing, or energy-producing, fusion reaction for the first time.

Where is the NIF located?

Interior of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Ignition Facility (NIF), located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California. The NIF target chamber uses a high-energy laser to heat fusion fuel to temperatures sufficient for thermonuclear ignition.

How does NIF work?

The laser beams used in the NIF start from a master oscillator as a single low-energy ( infrared) laser pulse lasting from 100 trillionths to 25 billionths of a second. This beam is split into 48 new beams that are routed through individual optical fibres to powerful preamplifiers that boost each beam’s energy by a factor of about 10 billion. Each of these 48 beams is then split into 4 new beams, which are fed to the 192 main laser amplifier systems. Each beam is routed back and forth through special glass amplifiers and adjustable mirrors—amplifying the beams about another 15,000-fold and shifting their wavelength to ultraviolet as they traverse nearly 100 km (60 miles) of fibre-optic cables. Finally, the 192 beams are sent to a near-vacuum target chamber 10 metres (33 feet) in diameter, where each beam delivers about 20,000 joules of energy to a small pellet of deuterium and tritium ( hydrogen isotopes with extra neutrons) located at the chamber’s centre. The beams must converge within a few trillionths of a second of each other at the spherical pellet, which is only about 2 mm (about 0.0787 inch) across and cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero (−273.15 °C, or −459.67 °F). Timed correctly, the beams deliver more than 4,000,000 joules of energy that heat the pellet to about 100,000,000 °C (180,000,000 °F) and set off a nuclear reaction.

When was the NIF completed?

Construction of the NIF was certified complete by the U.S. Department of Energy on March 31, and it was formally dedicated on May 29. Fusion ignition experiments began in 2011, and the device was expected to perform 700 to 1,000 experiments per year for the following 30 years.

What is the goal of a laser fusion reactor?

A major goal for the device is to create a self-renewing, or energy-producing, fusion reaction for the first time. If successful, it may demonstrate the feasibility of laser-based fusion reactors, a way for astrophysicists to perform stellar experiments, and allow physicists to better understand and test nuclear weapons.

Why is WCI using NIF?

WCI is using NIF to advance an understanding of fundamental nuclear processes and nuclear weapon performance. NIF is the only facility that can perform controlled, experimental studies of thermonuclear burn, the phenomenon that gives rise to the immense energy of modern nuclear weapons.

What is the NIF laser?

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest and highest-energy laser, was dedicated on May 29, 2009. In 2010, NIF began experiments that focus the energy of 192 giant laser beams on a BB-sized target filled with hydrogen fuel. NIF is capable of creating temperatures and pressures similar to those that exist only in the cores ...

What is the NIF system?

In a sense NIF, the world’s largest and highest-energy laser system, is one big laser amplifier. As with most large lasers, NIF uses intense flashes of white light from giant flashlamps to “pump” electrons in large slabs of laser glass to a higher-energy state that lasts only about one-millionth of a second.

What is the ablator in NIF?

When the hohlraum is heated by NIF’s powerful lasers to temperatures of more than 3 million degrees Celsius, the resulting x rays heat and blow off, or ablate , the surface of the target capsule, called the ablator. This causes a rocket-like implosion that compresses and heats the DT fuel to extreme temperatures and densities until the hydrogen atoms fuse, creating helium nuclei (alpha particles) and releasing high-energy neutrons and other forms of energy.

What is a NIF preamplifier?

NIF’s preamplifier modules are unique and complex lasers in themselves. They take the nanojoule-level laser light from the master oscillator, amplifiy it more than a billion times, and set its spatial profile before injecting it into the main laser beampath.

How many beams does NIF have?

The 192 beams proceed to two 10-story switchyards on either side of the Target Chamber where they are split into quads of 2×2 arrays by a series of transport mirrors (see Beam Transport ). Just before entering the Target Chamber, each quad passes through a final optics assembly, where the pulses are converted from infrared to ultraviolet light and focused onto the target. NIF’s 192 laser beams travel about 1,500 meters from their birth to their destination at the center of the spherical Target Chamber. Yet the journey from start to finish takes only about 5 microseconds.

How many preamplifiers are used in NIF?

At the outset of a NIF experiment, a weak laser pulse—about 1 billionth of a joule—is created, split, and carried on optical fibers to 48 preamplifiers that increase the pulse’s energy by a factor of 10 billion, to a few joules. The 48 beams are then split into four beams each for injection into the 192 main laser amplifier beamlines.

Where is the NIF located?

Located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NIF is funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the application of nuclear science to the nation's national security enterprise.

When was the NIF shot?

The shot validated NIF's most challenging laser performance specifications set in the late 1990s when scientists were planning the world's most energetic laser facility. Combining extreme levels of energy and peak power on a target in the NIF is a critical requirement for achieving one of physics' grand challenges -- igniting hydrogen fusion fuel in the laboratory and producing more energy than that supplied to the target.

What was the original concern about NIF lasers?

Original concerns about achieving these levels of extreme laser performance on NIF centered in part on the quality of optics existing in the late 1990s that could not withstand this intense laser light. Lawrence Livermore researchers worked closely with their industrial partners to improve manufacturing methods and drastically reduce the number of defects. Livermore scientists also developed in-house procedures to remove and mitigate small amounts of damage resulting from repeated laser firings.

What is a view of a cryogenically cooled NIF target as "seen" by the?

A view of a cryogenically cooled NIF target as "seen" by the laser through the hohlraum's laser entrance hole. In ignition experiments, the hydrogen in the fuel capsule must be compressed to about 100 times the density of lead.

How much energy does a NIF laser have?

On July 3 scientists achieved the highest energy laser shot ever fired, with more than 1.89 MJ delivered to the target at a peak power of 423 TW. A shot on March 15 set the stage for the July 5 experiment by delivering 1.8 MJ for the first time with a peak power of 411 TW.

What is NIF in nuclear energy?

NIF is the latest, and arguably the most sophisticated, addition to a number of critical stockpile stewardship facilities. It is the only facility with the potential to duplicate the actual phenomena that occur in the heart of a modern nuclear device -- a goal that is critical to sustaining confidence that a return to underground nuclear testing remains unnecessary. NIF also is providing unique experimental opportunities for scientists to enhance our understanding of the universe by creating the same extreme states of matter that exist in the centers of planets, stars and other celestial objects. Additionally, experiments at NIF are laying the groundwork to revolutionize energy production with fusion energy to provide abundant and sustainable clean energy.

How many lasers are in the NIF test?

In the historic test, NIF's 192 lasers fired within a few trillionths of a second of each other onto a 2-millimeter-diameter target. The total energy matched the amount requested by shot managers to within better than 1 percent. Additionally, the beam-to-beam uniformity was within 1 percent, making NIF not only the highest energy laser of its kind but the most precise and reproducible. "NIF is becoming everything scientists planned when it was conceived over two decades ago," NIF Director Edward Moses said. "It is fully operational, and scientists are taking important steps toward achieving ignition and providing experimental access to user communities for national security, basic science and the quest for clean fusion energy."

Where is NIF located?

NIF & Photon Science is a principal directorate of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California. The facility is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration(NNSA). Keys to Our Success.

What is the NIF?

largest and highest-energy laser system. NIF is a key element of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program. NIF’s 192 laser beams converge at the center of the Target Chamber.

What is NIF in science?

NIF enables scientists from across the nation and around the world to conduct unprecedented experiments in nuclear physics,high energy density science, materials science, weapon physics, and many other scientific disciplines. NIF laboratory experiments also allow NIF researchers, collaborators, and users to gain new insightsinto such mysterious astrophysical phenomena as

What reveal the inner details of NIF experiments?

Diagnostics reveal the inner details of NIF experiments.

How many laser beams does NIF have?

NIF’s 192 laser beams converge at the center of the Target Chamber

Overview

Inertial confinement fusion basics

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