Education
Lawrence Livermore’s High Energy Density Science (HEDS) Center is committed to expanding access to educational opportunities in HEDS that span all levels of career development.
We offer a range of informal, not-for-credit learning experiences, including seminars. We also collaborate with university faculty to develop curricula in emerging areas of HEDS, including short courses that last a few weeks, as well as full-length, for-credit courses offered in collaboration with universities.
Join us in shaping the future of HED science education
We invite university faculty to collaborate with us to expand HEDS learning opportunities at your institution, teach a short course at LLNL, or partner with us to raise awareness of career pathways in HED science. Please contact Center Director Frank Graziani to discuss how we can support your efforts to expand the scope of HEDS education available to your students and increase access to educational opportunities.
We also invite HED science experts, as well as early career researchers and scholars, to visit LLNL and deliver a seminar for our staff, postdocs, and interns. If you are interested in being part of our seminar series, where we discuss emerging areas of HEDS, we invite you to contact our center’s seminar series chair, Federica Coppari, at coppari1 [at] llnl.gov (coppari1[at]llnl[dot]gov)
Seminars
The Center invites HEDS researchers to deliver presentations as part of our weekly seminar series for LLNL staff, postdocs, and interns.
If you are interested in delivering a seminar, contact Federica Coppari, seminar series chair, at coppari1 [at] llnl.gov (coppari1[at]llnl[dot]gov)
Featured seminar recordings are available on the HEDS Seminar Series YouTube channel. The full archive of seminars can be found on our seminars page.
Courses
Short Courses
The HEDS Center collaborates with our academic partners to develop and deliver for-credit courses in HEDS for LLNL staff, as well as faculty, students, and postdocs from our partnering institutions. We also develop and deliver short, not-for-credit courses for students and LLNL staff on various HEDS topics.
Examples of past short courses we have developed or codeveloped include:
- Laser‒Plasma Interactions
This three-week short course explored the principles of laser‒plasma interactions that are relevant to HED physics, with a focus on unmagnetized plasmas. The course instructor was Pierre Michel, an LLNL expert in plasma physics. - Interaction of X Rays with Matter
This course provided an overview of the interaction of x rays with matter, ranging from low-intensity continuous-wave to high-intensity short-pulse x-ray radiation as produced by x-ray free-electron lasers. The course instructor was Stefan Hau-Riege, an LLNL expert in x-ray-free-electron-laser‒based imaging, scattering, and spectroscopic techniques. - HED Plasma Experiments and Diagnostics
This short course, intended for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students, surveyed the basics of laboratory HED plasmas produced by energetic lasers, and principles of several diagnostic instruments used to measure their properties. The course instructor was LLNL’s Hui Chen, an internationally recognized physicist.
If you are interested in viewing course material for one of these completed courses, please contact the HEDS Center Administrator, Jessica Karlton, at karlton1 [at] llnl.gov (karlton1[at]llnl[dot]gov).
Full-Length Courses
The following full-length courses have been offered as part of the center’s collaborations with our academic partners.
- Plasma Diagnostics
The HEDS Center, in collaboration with the University of California, San Diego, offers an online graduate-level course each spring in diagnostics for HED plasmas. The course will introduce the evolving and diverse technologies underlying many of the diagnostics for HED plasmas, with an emphasis on the basic physics and engineering of measurement techniques. Students will explore examples of measurements provided by three large HED facilities—LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, OMEGA at the University of Rochester, and Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories.
Sign up for the diagnostics course: The 2024 course runs from April 2 to June 6, every Tuesday and Thursday from 12:30 to 1:50 pm PST and will be recorded via WebEx. The tentative lecture schedule is available here. The course is open to all national laboratory and university students, postdocs, faculty, and staff. To sign up for the course, please contact the HEDS Center Administrator, Jessica Karlton, atkarlton1 [at] llnl.gov ( karlton1[at]llnl[dot]gov). If you are a University of California student, contact fbeg [at] ucsd.edu (Farhat Beg) to obtain course credit.
The following full-length courses have previously been offered as part of the center’s collaborations with our academic partners.
- Special Topics in HED Physics
The HEDS Center collaborated with the University of Rochester to offer a new graduate course focused on special topics in HED physics, extending from ultra-dense matter to the radiation-dominated regime. The course was taught by University of Rochester professors. - Extreme Physics
The HEDS Center partnered with the University of California, San Diego, to deliver a new graduate course focused on the physics of materials at very high energies and densities. The course was taught by LLNL physicist Jeff Colvin, co-author of the book “Extreme Physics.”
