About NIF & Photon Science

NIF & Photon Science is a principal directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California. The directorate operates the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest and most energetic laser, which has the goal of achieving nuclear fusion and energy gain in the laboratory for the first time—in essence, creating a miniature star on Earth.

A technician inspects a final optics assembly unit on the NIF target chamber.

A program of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), NIF will focus the intense energy of 192 giant laser beams on a BB-sized target filled with hydrogen fuel, fusing the hydrogen atoms' nuclei and releasing many times more energy than it took to initiate the fusion reaction. NIF is capable of creating temperatures and pressures similar to those that exist only in the cores of stars and giant planets and inside nuclear weapons. Achieving nuclear fusion in the laboratory is at the heart of the directorate's three complementary missions:

Helping ensure the nation's security without nuclear weapons testing (see National Security).
Blazing the path to a carbon-free energy future (see Energy for the Future).
Achieving breakthroughs in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including astrophysics, materials science, the use of lasers in medicine, radioactive and hazardous waste treatment, particle physics, and X-ray and neutron science (see Understanding the Universe).

The NIF construction project, completed in March 2009, was a national collaboration between government, industry, academia, and industrial partners throughout the nation.

Hundreds of scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel (see People) are working together to accomplish the NIF & Photon Science Directorate's exciting missions in four program areas:

Before each NIF experiment, a positioner precisely centers the target inside the target chamber and serves as a reference to align the laser beams.The National Ignition Campaign (NIC), which encompasses all of the experiments, hardware, and infrastructure needed to carry out the initial integrated ignition experiments on NIF in the 2010-2012 time frame and to continue research on inertial confinement fusion in the following years. NIC is a key element of NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the reliability and safety of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without full-scale testing.

The Inertial Fusion Energy Program,which is exploring a variety of approaches to using inertial confinement fusion, NIF's core technology, to achieve energy gain and help lay the groundwork for the eventual use of fusion energy as a clean, safe, virtually limitless source of electricity. One promising approach is Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, or LIFE, an advanced power-plant design that could produce vast quantites of carbon-free energy soon enough to make a difference in meeting the planet's energy needs.

The Photon Science & Applications (PS&A) Program,which develops advanced laser and optics technologies and applications for national missions including homeland security, national defense, stockpile science, and energy. PS&A's primary objectives are to create:

New technologies and applications for NIF;
Electric lasers for defense, energy, and basic science;
High-energy photon sources for radiography and isotope-specific assay, imaging, and detection; and
Ultra-high-intensity lasers for frontier high-energy-density science.

Experiments on NIF will reveal the nature and behavior of many astrophysical phenomena such as Supernova 1006, seen in this false-color image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.Science at the Extremes. NIF will become a premier international center for experimental science early in this decade. The extreme temperatures and pressures that will be created inside the NIF target chamber will enable scientists from around the world to conduct unprecedented experiments in high energy density science and gain new insights into such mysterious astrophysical phenomena as supernovae, giant planets, and black holes (see For Users).

NIF will be managed as a shared national resource to fully exploit its potential as a unique experimental physics tool. Users of NIF will include scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, worldwide fusion energy and high energy density science research centers, academia, and other national and international sources.