Obscura

NIF

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) Programs Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) enables key programs and technologies that support the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Programs and LLNL missions of ensuring that the nation's nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable.

The charter of the Directorate is to construct and operate the National Ignition Facility, to perform research on ignition and high-energy-density matter in the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program as part of the overall Stockpile Stewardship Program, and to foster the development of associated laser technologies such as those developed in the Photon Science and Applications Program.

The NIF Project in Livermore, California is the largest laser in the world.
For further information see NIF Project Status.

1. The facility is very large, the size of a sports stadium
2. The target is very small, the size of a pencil eraser
3. The laser system is very powerful, equal to 1,000 times the electric generating power of the United States
4. Each laser pulse is very short, a few billionths of a second

Experiments in NIF will access high-energy-density and fusion regimes with direct applications to stockpile stewardship, energy research, science, and astrophysics.

The NIF Project draws extensively from expertise from throughout LLNL, including the Engineering, Chemistry and Material Science, and Computation Directorates.

posted by Cobb @ 8:21 PM