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National Ignition Campaign

One of the Grand Challenges in science and engineering is the demonstration of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) – thermonuclear ignition and energy gain – in the laboratory (see How to Make a Star). A NIF hohlraumLawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in collaboration with its partners in the National Ignition Campaign (NIC) – Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester and General Atomics of San Diego (see NIC Participants) – took a major step toward tackling this challenge in the fall of 2010 with the beginning of integrated ignition experiments on the National Ignition Facility (see the News Release).

NIC's ICF experiments are designed to advance the National Nuclear Security Administration's Stockpile Stewardship Program as well as basic high energy density science research in such fields as astrophysics, nuclear physics, radiation transport, materials dynamics and hydrodynamics (see Science at the Extremes). Other experiments will provide scientists with the necessary understanding of the physics underlying the use of ICF for safe, clean energy production (see Inertial Fusion Energy).

Interior of the NIF Target Chamber

NIC includes all of the experiments, hardware and infrastructure needed to execute the initial integrated ignition experiments and to continue research on ignition in the following years. Key elements of NIC include target physics concept validation and equipment such as diagnostics and the cryogenic target system required for ignition experiments.

“The large physical scale and high complexity of the ignition experimental campaign places it firmly at the forefront of experimental physics.”
—JASON Program Report on NIF Ignition,
June 2005

Target designs have been developed that are calculated to ignite at a laser energy as low as one megajoule. Research using the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester has validated these designs. Development of manufacturing capability is well under way for producing these targets to the required tolerances. Diagnostics and other support equipment are being tested and commissioned.