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National Ignition Facility and Photon Science
Visiting professor welds new partnerships
Commander Brad Baker, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the United States Naval Academy, recently completed a six-week stint at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as part of the Visiting Scientist Program.Baker has conducted research in conjunction with Livermore for more than three years, including a material characterization study of nuclear…
Lawrence Livermore scientist receives Fusion Power Associates leadership award
John Edwards, associate program director for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and high energy density (HED) science and the ICF program leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is a recipient of the Leadership Award from Fusion Power Associates (FPA) Board of Directors.FPA Leadership Awards have been given annually since 1980 to recognize those who have…
Peering into giant planets from in and out of this world
Lawrence Livermore scientists for the first time have experimentally re-created the conditions that exist deep inside giant planets, such as Jupiter, Uranus and many of the planets recently discovered outside our solar system.Researchers can now re-create and accurately measure material properties that control how these planets evolve over time, information essential for…
Wisoff selected as principal associate director for NIF & Photon Science
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Bill Goldstein has named Peter J.K. "Jeff" Wisoff the principal associate director for the Lab's National Ignition Facility & Photon Science (PAD/NIF&PS) directorate. The appointment is effective immediately. Wisoff has been acting PAD/NIF&PS since Oct. 2013 "and has done an outstanding job in that role,"…
Bringing new life to Laser Guide Star
Earlier this year, Lawrence Livermore engineering technical associate Pam Danforth applied 30 years of laser experience to an out-of-this-world problem -- bringing new life to the University of California's Lick Observatory Laser Guide Star.The Lick Observatory's Laser Guide Star is vital to astronomers because a natural guide star isn't always near an object they want to…
Laser researchers revolutionize aviation industry
Editor's note: This article is part of an occasional series about LLNL entrepreneurs.Most people don't realize it, but the airplane they are flying on may be stronger and safer thanks to a pair of former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers who developed and commercialized an innovative but relatively obscure technology.Lloyd Hackel and Brent Dane found a way…
NIF experiments show initial gain in fusion fuel
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Ignition -- the process of releasing fusion energy equal to or greater than the amount of energy used to confine the fuel -- has long been considered the "holy grail" of inertial confinement fusion science. A key step along the path to ignition is to have "fuel gains" greater than unity, where the energy generated through fusion reactions exceeds the…
New X-ray analysis method opens the door to researching an elusive class of proteins
An international team of researchers has demonstrated a new method for studying the structure of proteins that could lead to important advances in biology and other fields. For the first time, protein crystals have been studied in two dimensions at room temperature with X-rays, using a new technique that could open the door for scientists to learn more about an important…
NIF experimental campaign highlighted by Physical Review Letters
Demonstrating the controlled fusing of deuterium and tritium (hydrogen isotopes), such that more energy is produced than is used to create the fusions, is one of the stated goals of the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Two papers published Feb. 5 in Physical Review Letters describe the "high-foot" series of experiments begun last spring, which bring NIF closer to…
Lawrence Livermore scientist selected as SPIE Fellow
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Steve Payne was recently selected as a fellow of SPIE, an international professional society for optics and photonics. Payne, an active SPIE participant since the mid-1980s, is the group leader for sensor materials and measurements in the Lab's Materials Sciences Division and is the associate…
Lawrence Livermore announces significant step in the construction of a next-generation ultra-high power laser system
LIVERMORE, Calif. --Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has awarded a major subcontract to FEMTOLASERS Produktions GmbH (based in Vienna, Austria) as part of the construction of a revolutionary high-power laser system for the European ELI-Beamlines science facility in the Czech Republic. LLNL is constructing the "High Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser…
Journal cover features Lawrence Livermore's intense laser interaction simulation research
Research from the Lab'sFrederic Perez, Andreas Kemp, Laurent Divol, Cliff Chen and Prav Patel is featured on the cover of the Dec. 13 2013 issue of Physical Review Letters. For several decades, physicists have used lasers of very high power, such as at LLNL's Jupiter Laser Facility, to create extreme states of matter. By focusing such lasers to a beam as narrow as a few…
Media Advisory: Lawrence Livermore to announce significant step in the construction of next-generation laser system
WHO: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Femtolasers will announce a new partnership.WHAT: Following an international competitive tender, LLNL will announce Femtolasers as the winning bidder for supply of a cutting-edge short pulse front-end, which will seed the High Repetition Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser system (HAPLS), currently under development for the…
Lawrence Livermore researchers demonstrate high-energy betatron X-rays
A Lawrence Livermore team, along with researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has recently produced some of the highest energy betatron X-rays ever demonstrated, with the added benefit of being produced on a system the size of a large tabletop. Betatron X-ray radiation, produced when relativistic electrons are…
Two Lawrence Livermore researchers named 2013 APS fellows
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Two Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have been selected as 2013 fellows of the American Physical Society (APS).John Moody, acting group leader for hohlraum energetics/optical diagnostics in the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program, was cited in the plasma physics category for "pioneering experiments contributing to understanding…
LLNL sustainability efforts recognized by NNSA
Three of Lawrence Livermore's sustainability projects have been recognized by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with 2013 Sustainability Awards.The awards recognize exemplary individual and team performance in advancing sustainability objectives through innovative and effective programs and projects that increase energy, water and fleet efficiency and…
Edward Moses to lead Fusion Ignition Science and Applications research effort -- Jeff Wisoff appointed acting principal associate director of NIF & Photon Science
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Edward Moses, the principal associate director for the National Ignition Facility & Photon Science (NIF&PS) Directorate, will be taking a new position to lead a two-year effort to explore the science and applications of ignition, including the commercial prospects for laser inertial fusion energy. In this role, Moses will bring together academia…
Physicist Jim Hammer receives prestigious Edward Teller Award
Jim Hammer, a physicist in the Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate (WCI) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is a recipient of the 2013 Edward Teller Medal.The Fusion Energy Division of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) presented the award recently during the International Inertial Fusion Science Applications (IFSA) conference in Nara, Japan. Hammer was…
Lawrence Livermore to build advanced laser system in Czech Republic
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), through Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (LLNS), has been awarded more than $45 million to develop and deliver a state-of-the-art laser system for the European Union's Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines facility ( ELI-Beamlines ), under construction in Dolni Brezany near Prague in the Czech…
Laser fusion experiment yields record energy at LLNL's National Ignition Facility
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- In the early morning hours of Aug.13, Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility (NIF) focused all 192 of its ultra-powerful laser beams on a tiny deuterium-tritium filled capsule. In the nanoseconds that followed, the capsule imploded and released a neutron yield of nearly 3x10 15 , or approximately 8,000 joules of neutron energy -- approximately…
