Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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About NIF:
NIF is the world's largest and most energetic laser system. NIF's 192 intense laser beams can deliver nearly two million joules of ultraviolet laser energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses—more than 60 times the energy of any previous laser system. When all that energy hits a millimeter-sized target, it can generate temperatures of more than 100 million degrees and pressures more than 100 billion times the Earth's atmosphere—conditions only found in stars and the cores of giant planets, and in nuclear weapons.
NIF's goal is to achieve fusion by compressing and heating a peppercorn-sized capsule containing a mixture of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen. This process will cause the fusion fuel to ignite and burn, producing more energy than the laser energy required to spark the reaction. Achieving nuclear fusion in the laboratory is at the heart of the NIF & Photon Science Directorate's three complementary missions: ensuring the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nuclear weapons stockpile without underground testing; blazing the path to a safe, virtually unlimited, carbon-free energy future; and achieving breakthroughs in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including astrophysics, materials science, and plasma physics.
NIF is a program of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration and is operated by the NIF & Photon Science Principal Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.
