Some of the Laboratory’s major accomplishments include:
The Livermore-designed warhead for the submarine-launched Polaris missile
Nuclear
Warheads for the Stockpile. Weapon design
breakthroughs at the Laboratory in the 1950s made
possible the design of compact thermonuclear weapons
that could be launched from submarines. Livermore
developed the first warheads for the Polaris SLBM
and multiple-reentry-vehicle ICBMs. Livermore completed
the first program to refurbish deployed nuclear weapons
in the absence of nuclear testing by extending the
lifetime of the W87 ICBM warhead. Current activities
focus on developing proposals for reliable replacement
warheads.
The W87, with modern safety features, designed by Livermore
Certification
of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile. Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos,
and Sandia national laboratories provide technical assessments that provide
the basis for the Annual Assessment Review. This formal process to assess the
safety, security, and performance of the nation’s nuclear arsenal in the
absence of nuclear testing is conducted each year.
A power wall visualization of a 3D simulation
The World’s
Most Advanced Scientific Computer Simulations.
Livermore has been on the cutting-edge of scientific simulation
from the arrival of the Univac in 1953 to the delivery in 2005
of the IBM "Purple" supercomputercapable of 100 trillion
operations per second (teraops)and the 280-teraop BlueGene/L
machine. The need to better simulate weapons performance has
driven the development of increasingly capable high-performance
computers by U.S. industry.
Inside NIF’s target
chamber, experiments reveal the mysteries of fusion
Pioneering
Research and Record-Breaking Lasers. With construction approaching completion,
the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the world’s largest laser. Well-diagnosed
experiments to examine fusion burn and study the thermonuclear properties of nuclear
weapons will begin at the 192-beam laser in 2010. NIF is the seventh (since 1975) in
a sequence of successively larger lasers built at Livermore in pursuit of achieving
inertial confinement fusion. Pioneering research in lasers at the Laboratory also led
to the exploration of x-ray lasers in the 1980s and the development the world’s first
petawatt laser in 1997.
A hand-held radiation detector
Contributions
to Nonproliferation, Homeland, and International
Security.
Since the late 1950s, Livermore has contributed to
nuclear arms control by providing technical analysis
and support and developing treaty monitoring capabilities.
Also, in 1965, a formal program was established at
Livermore to analyze for the U.S. intelligence community
the Soviet nuclear threat and, thereafter, other
weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMD) threats. Livermore
also pursues programs to reduce the proliferation
of WMD expertise. To strengthen homeland security,
the Laboratory has developed real-time, portable
radiation and biological agent detectors and other
tools to help U.S. policy makers, planners, and
first responders to WMD use.
Genome
Sequencing. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Laboratory made rapid
advances in flow cytometry, and by 1979, scientists learned how to sort
human chromosomes. Livermore and Los Alamos began to build human chromosome-specific
DNA libraries, and in 1986 DOE launched a major initiative to decipher the
human genetic code that evolved into the Human Genome Project. The Joint
Genome Institute (JGI), which merges the production sequencing efforts of
Livermore, Los Alamos, and Berkeley national laboratories, sequenced human
chromosomes 5, 16, and 19. Expertise in genomics at Livermore now contributes
to the development of biological agent detectors and technologies for disease
prevention and environmental health.
The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center
Advances
in Energy and Environmental Science. Among many accomplishments, ranging from major progress
in fusion energy science to technologies for groundwater monitoring and cleanup, are Livermore’s
advances in atmospheric modeling. In the late 1950s, a Laboratory researcher constructed the first
global circulation model to simulate the behavior of large weather systems. By the 1990s, steady
improvements to global circulation models provided evidence of human-induced climate change. Livermore
is also home to the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center for real-time assessments of the
dispersion of hazardous materials.
Laser guide star aids astronomers at the Keck Observatory
Discoveries
in Astrophysics. In the 1960s, Livermore researchers authored key papers on gravitation collapse
and supernova explosions. Subsequent efforts included discovery of Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs)
in the search for "missing mass" in the universe; development of the sensor suite for Clementine, which
collected over 1.7 million images while orbiting the Moon; creation of metallic hydrogen in a laboratory;
and development of laser guide star adaptive optics to improve images from terrestrial telescopes.
Award-Winning
Science and Technology. The 1998 Nobel Prize
for Physics was shared by Stanford Professor Robert
Laughlin, who performed his award winning work while
at Livermore. The E. O. Lawrence Award has been
presented to 25 Laboratory scientists and engineers
for their exceptional contributions in the field
of atomic energy. In addition, since 1978, Livermore
researchers have garnered 113 R&D 100 Awards.