The National Ignition (NIF) laser pointer system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California has set a new record, emitting 2.15 megajoules (MJ) of energy into the target room. This record is 15% higher than the 1.8 MJ design specification and 10% higher than the 1.9 MJ energy record set in March 2012.
The record-breaking demonstrations also successfully met the 2018 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Level 2 milestone. NIF is the world's largest and most dynamic laser system, funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration, and an important research institution supporting the US nuclear weapons reserve management program.
The experiment also demonstrates that NIF is safe to achieve maximum energy through its current optical and laser configurations. Increasing the energy limit of NIF will expand the parameter space of the management project and greatly promote the ignition project, which is a key element of the NNSA nuclear weapons reserve management project.
The laser pointer uses tens of thousands of large precision optics, including lenses, laser glass plates, mirrors, and variable frequency crystals to focus extremely high energy through a 192 laser beam to a small point, producing a similar The core of stars and giant planets and the temperature and pressure of nuclear explosions.
Based on this successful demonstration, NIF is working with LLNL's ignition program to perform the first ignition experiment using this enhanced energy capability later this summer.