What National Ignition Facility experiment just produced a new record?

America’s National Ignition Facility measured a record of 70\% conversion in their laser fusion experiments. For a brief moment the fusion was self-sustaining. A moment that excites people around the globe.

What is National Ignition Facility?

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. NIF uses lasers to heat and compress a small amount of hydrogen fuel with the goal of inducing nuclear fusion reactions.

What is NIF used for?

NIF enables scientists to create extreme states of matter, including temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures that exceed 100 billion times Earth’s atmosphere. NIF supports national security, fundamental science, energy security, and national competitiveness missions.

What is Lawrence Livermore lab famous for?

For more than 60 years, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has applied science and technology to make the world a safer place. Livermore’s defining responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent.

What is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory famous for?

10. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is named after physicist Ernest O. Lawrence, the recipient of the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for the invention and development of the cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator. Lawrence is considered one of the “founding fathers” of the Lab.

Does the US have fusion bombs?

Such bombs are classified as two stage weapons, and most current Teller–Ulam designs are such fission-fusion-fission weapons. The first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952; the concept has since been employed by most of the world’s nuclear powers in the design of their weapons.