Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

Exploring fabrication limits for UV guiding hollow core anti-resonant fiber

We report a preform scaling technique to fabricate hollow-core Nested Antiresonant Nodeless Fiber (NANF) for guiding ultraviolet wavelengths. We demonstrate that fabrication of NANFs with membrane thicknesses of ~100nm and yields of 1km are possible

Three stage HCF fabrication technique for high yield, broadband UV-visible fibers

Hollow-core optical fibers can offer broadband, single mode guidance in the UV-visible-NIR wavelength range, with the potential for low-loss, solarization-free operation, making them desirable and potentially disruptive for a wide range of applications. To achieve this requires the fabrication of fibers with <300nm anti-resonant membranes, which is technically challenging. Here we investigate the underlying fluid dynamics of the fiber fabrication process and demonstrate a new three-stage fabrication approach, capable of delivering long (∼350m) lengths of fiber with the desired thin-membranes

Fabricating thin membraned anti-resonant hollow-core fibre for broadband UV-visible light guidance

We demonstrate a fabrication technique enabling long lengths (>2km) of hollow-core anti-resonant fibres (HC-ARFs) with thin-membranes