The first experiments on the national ignition facility

A first set of shock propagation, laser-plasma interaction, hohlraum energetics and hydrodynamic experiments have been performed using the first 4 beams of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), in support of indirect drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and High Energy Density Physics

Assembly of High-Areal-Density Deuterium-Tritium Fuel from Indirectly Driven Cryogenic Implosions

The National Ignition Facility has been used to compress deuterium-tritium to an average areal density of ~1.0±0.1  g cm[superscript -2], which is 67% of the ignition requirement. These conditions were obtained using 192 laser beams with total energy of 1–1.6 MJ and peak power up to 420 TW to create a hohlraum drive with a shaped power profile, peaking at a soft x-ray radiation temperature of 275–300 eV. This pulse delivered a series of shocks that compressed a capsule containing cryogenic deuterium-tritium to a radius of 25–35  μm. Neutron images of the implosion were used to estimate a fuel density of 500–800  g cm[superscript -3].Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344

The First Experiments on the National Ignition Facility

A first set of laser-plasma interaction, hohlraum energetics and hydrodynamic experiments have been performed using the first 4 beams of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), in support of indirect drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and High Energy Density Physics (HEDP). In parallel, a robust set of optical and x-ray spectrometers, interferometer, calorimeters and imagers have been activated. The experiments have been undertaken with laser powers and energies of up to 8 TW and 17 kJ in flattop and shaped 1-9 ns pulses focused with various beam smoothing options