A joint Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL )/ Sandia National Laboratories team has commissioned a Line Velocity Interferometer System for Any Reflector (Line VISAR) at Sandia’s Z Machine. Line VISAR is used to measure the velocities of shocks and surface motions when enormous pressures...
Physicists designing new laser systems and modeling laser performance at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) now have a powerful new tool in their hands with the Rigel release of Virtual Beam Line++ (VBL++). The current version of VBL, a java-based code, has been in use since 2000. VBL...
Using ultrashort laser pulses lasting a few picoseconds (trillionths of a second), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) researchers have discovered an efficient mechanism for laser ablation (material removal) that could help pave the way to the use of lower-energy, less costly lasers in...
The Laser Institute of America ( LIA ) has recognized Jamie King, certified laser safety officer (CLSO) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL) , with the R. James Rockwell Jr. Educational Achievement Award. The award was presented at the recent International Laser Safety Conference (ILSC...
A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) team of physicists and target engineers has reached an important goal with a new technique for electroplating copper and gold to create tiny, smoothly spherical inertial confinement fusion ( ICF ) target shells. The target designers engineered a...
The annual National Ignition Facility (NIF) and Jupiter Laser Facility (JLF) User Group meeting brought together more than 180 researchers to learn about the capabilities, recent experiments and new experimental platforms of both Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) facilities. The...
Advances in deep-learning tools for predictive modeling at NIF and updates on high-power lasers used for fusion research around the world were among the dozens of topics presented at a recent Photonics West conference chaired by leaders in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition...
For Tom Epperly, writing software is both a lifelong avocation and a hobby. So, working on a major redesign of NIF ’s Virtual Beam Line (VBL) code is a dream come true. As the software architect of the VBL++ project, he is part of the team responsible for reimplementing the older Java-based VBL...
High-energy density (HED) science is foundational to the nationally important research conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) — yet few universities offer programs geared for the study of matter and energy under extreme conditions. And even fewer offer such courses for...
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility ( NIF ) and General Atomics engineers have created an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) fuel capsule with a 2-micron-diameter fill tube — and along the way, found a solution to a “Bay Bridge”-like dilemma that could have...
