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Lasers and Optical S&T
New accelerator to examine heavy-ion-beam approach to inertial fusion power
The Department of Energy's Heavy Ion Fusion Science Virtual National Laboratory (HIFS-VNL), whose member institutions include LLNL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, has recently completed a new accelerator designed to study an alternate approach to inertial fusion energy. Housed at LBNL, NDCX-II is a compact machine…
Optical Society of America names Seppala senior member
Lynn Seppala has been named a senior member of the Optical Society of America (OSA), an international society for optics and photonics scientists, engineers, educators and business leaders. Senior membership status recognizes members with more than 10 years of significant experience and professional accomplishments or service in their fields. Seppala, a senior optical…
Lab featured on NOVA's 'Hunting the Elements'
The Laboratory was recently featured on NOVA's "Hunting the Elements," a two-hour special from the producers of the "Making Stuff" series hosted by David Pogue, technology correspondent of The New York Times . Pogue spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry: the strongest acids, the deadliest poisons, the universe's most abundant elements, and the rarest…
LLNL highlighted in upcoming television lineup
An 8-10-minute segment about NIF and the progress toward ignition is scheduled to air on "CBS Sunday Morning" Sunday, April 1; the program begins at 6 a.m. Pacific time. New York Times technology columnist and CBS News contributor David Pogue and a CBS camera crew visited NIF on March 8 to prepare the segment. Pogue interviewed NIF Director Ed Moses and the crew did…
Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility achieves record laser energy in pursuit of fusion ignition
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- The National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's most energetic laser, surpassed a critical milestone in its efforts to meet one of modern science's greatest challenges: achieving fusion ignition and energy gain in a laboratory setting. NIF's 192 lasers fired in perfect unison, delivering a record 1.875 million joules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light…
NIF's Operations Support Building awarded LEED certification
The Operations Support Building (OSB) in Bldg. 581 has achieved certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. The OSB, which houses the new Target Alignment System and Final Optics Damage Inspection System alignment labs as well as optics and material handling labs and offices, is the fifth building at LLNL to be…
Ten scientists named Distinguished Members of Technical Staff
Ten Laboratory researchers have been named Distinguished Members of Technical Staff (DMTS) for their extraordinary scientific and technical contributions to the Laboratory and its missions as acknowledged by their professional peers and the larger community. Jim Candy of the Engineering Directorate, John Castor of the Weapons and Complex Integration Principal Directorate,…
Scientists create new atomic X-ray laser
Lab scientists and international collaborators have created the shortest, purest X-ray laser pulses ever achieved, fulfilling a 45-year-old prediction and ultimately opening the door to new medicines, devices and materials. The researchers, reporting today (Jan. 26) in Nature , aimed radiation from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), located at the Stanford Linear…
Lawrence Livermore physicist John Edwards elected 2011 APS fellow
John Edwards, associate program director for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and high energy density (HED) science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has been selected as a 2011 American Physical Society (APS) fellow. Edwards was cited in the plasma physics category for fundamental contributions to hydrodynamics in HED physics and for his leadership in the…
Barty named SPIE Fellow
Christopher Barty, chief technology officer for LLNL's National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Directorate, is one of 75 newly-named fellows of SPIE (the international society for optics and photonics). Barty is recognized for his achievements in a leadership role in the advancement and development of new laser technology. He has published more than 150 manuscripts…
Lab researchers gain microscopic understanding of nuclear fusion
Lab scientists have taken a crucial step toward describing thermonuclear reactions from first principles. Over the past decade, progress has been made in understanding the static properties of light nuclei based on realistic interactions among protons and neutrons. But ab initio calculations of nuclear scattering and reactions have been mostly confined to systems of four…
2011 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award
Mike Dunne, director of Laser Fusion Energy at LLNL, has been awarded the 2011 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award by Fusion Power Associates (FPA). Dunne received the award Dec. 14 at the FPA's annual meeting and symposium in Washington, D.C. The FPA board chose Dunne for the honor based on his "many technical contributions to high energy density physics and laser…
NIF achieves record ramp-compression pressures
In the first university-based planetary science experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), researchers have gradually compressed a diamond sample to a record pressure of 50 megabars (50 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure). By replicating the conditions believed to exist in the cores of several recently discovered "super-Earths" - extra-solar planets three…
Lab physicist recognized with NNSA Award
Steve MacLaren, a physicist with LLNL's Weapons and Complex Integration Principal Directorate, has been recognized with the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Defense Programs' Employee of the Quarter Award. Recipients of the awards are recognized for going beyond the call of duty in supporting the mission of NNSA's Defense Programs. "The Defense Programs…
LLNL helps open a new era of plasma nuclear science
In a unique experiment recently published in Physical Review Letters , researchers used the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester to make precise measurements of a fundamental nuclear process -- the elastic scattering of neutrons off heavy forms of hydrogen. This is the first time a fundamental nuclear physics experiment has been achieved using a high-energy…
Bruce Remington awarded prestigious Edward Teller Medal
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Bruce Remington, group leader for material dynamics in the National Ignition Facility Directorate's High Energy Density Experiments Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is the recipient of the 2011 Edward Teller Medal. The Fusion Energy Division of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) presented the award today (Sept. 14), during the…
Castro Morales APPlies his talents at NIF
Like many organizations across the country, summer is a time for an influx of new, fresh faces. LLNL is no different, welcoming hundreds of summer students and interns from near and far. One of those students is Jorge Castro Morales. A computer engineering student at the Universidad del Turabo at Gurabo, Puerto Rico, his interest in the Lab was piqued when a friend who…
Lab and Spain sign agreement to collaborate on fusion
The Laboratory has signed a memorandum of understanding to engage in joint research and to promote the exchange of personnel with Spain's Instituto de Fusion Nuclear (IFN), a research institute of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) to explore the highest level of nuclear fusion research. The Laboratory and IFN have had a long history of collaboration; the MOU…
Lindl, Rosen, Santer and Spencer named Distinguished Members Technical Staff
Four Laboratory employees have been named Distinguished Members of Technical Staff (DMTS) for their extraordinary scientific and technical contributions to the Laboratory and its missions as acknowledged by their professional peers and the larger community. John Lindl of the NIF and Photon Science Principal Directorate, Mordy Rosen of the Weapons Complex and Integration…
Science & Technology Review focuses on new energy source
The July/August 2011 issue of Science & Technology Review is now online . This issue's feature article, "Igniting Our Energy Future," reports on how Livermore researchers are forging a commercial pathway for a revolutionary power plant called LIFE to help the nation meet the increasing demand for safe, clean and sustainable electricity. A second feature highlight's…
