Presentation
17 March 2023 Experimental operations at the National Ignition Facility
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a 192-beam laser operated as an experimental facility to support its science-based stockpile stewardship program. The facility delivers up to 1.9 MJ UV energy to targets creating temperatures and pressures only found at the center of stars. The facility routinely conducts experiments supporting inertial confinement fusion, high energy density stockpile science, national security applications, and fundamental science. In this talk we will review how complex high energy density experiments are planned and performed in the world’s largest laser facility including configuring and aligning the lasers, the target experimental systems and the diagnostics. We will show the measures we take to safely conduct experiments that create extreme neutron fluxes. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344-ABS-LLNL-ABS-815547
Conference Presentation
© (2023) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Steven Weaver, Chris Choate, Bob Ehrlich, Tom Kohut, Adam Langro, and Bruno Van Wonterghem "Experimental operations at the National Ignition Facility", Proc. SPIE PC12401, High Power Lasers for Fusion Research VII, PC1240104 (17 March 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2657796
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KEYWORDS
National Ignition Facility

Fusion energy

Diagnostics

Stars

Ultraviolet radiation

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