World’s largest laser built in California

The U.S. Department of Energy says the National Nuclear Security Administration has certified the completion of the world’s largest laser.

Located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility in California, the laser is expected to allow scientists to achieve fusion ignition in the laboratory, obtaining more energy from the target than is provided by the laser.

“Completion of the National Ignition Facility is a true milestone that will make America safer and more energy independent by opening new avenues of scientific advancement and discovery,” said NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino. “NIF will be a cornerstone of a critical national security mission, ensuring the continuing reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without underground nuclear testing, while also providing a path to explore the frontiers of basic science and potential technologies for energy independence.”

The Energy Department said the stadium-sized NIF is capable of focusing all of its 192 individual beams onto a spot about two-hundredths of an inch in diameter at the center of its 32-foot diameter target chamber in billionths of one second or a nano-second.

Fusion is the combining of atomic particles like hydrogen into helium that powers the very stars, including our Sun, and is the source of the enormous power in so-called hydrogen bombs or thermo-nuclear bombs. It holds out the potential for a virtually unlimited power supplies.

NIF became the world’s first fusion laser facility to break the one-megajoule barrier. NIF’s 192 laser beams delivered 1.1 million joules (MJ) of ultraviolet energy to the center of its ten-meter-diameter target chamber (one megajoule is the energy consumed by 10,000 100-watt light bulbs in one second). The accomplishment came less than two weeks after NIF first fired all 192 of its laser beams to target chamber center.

The 1.1-MJ pulse precisely matched the shape necessary for achieving ignition. The main laser delivered 1.952 MJ of infrared energy.

“This is an incredible milestone on our journey to ignition,” said NIF Director Ed Moses. “It was a great night that was the culmination of 15 years of incredible work by the entire NIF team. We are well on our way to achieving what we set out to do - controlled, sustained nuclear fusion and energy gain for the first time ever in a laboratory setting.”

The target positioner and target alignment system precisely locate a target in the NIF target chamber. The target is positioned with an accuracy of less than the thickness of a human hair.

For the past several weeks scientists and technicians have been conducting readiness tests within the NIF. “The system already has produced 25 times more energy than any other laser system,” Moses said. “NIF is well on its way to achieving breakthroughs in science never imagined. Through our readiness testing we will see glimpses of what that future will bring.

“NIF’s remarkable progress toward initial ignition experiments in 2010 is a tribute to the ingenuity, dedication and hard work of an extraordinarily talented team of scientists, engineers and technicians, supported by an equally talented and energetic administrative staff and construction crew,” Moses said.

Notwithstanding the hysterics that I call  C. A. V. E. (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) people who will interpret this idea into a negative or even a danger of some sort; this is a significant advance along the way to controlled fusion energy. But, there is a long way to go.