What if there could be a star on Earth? The National Ignition Facility aims to do just that. The primary goal of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is to attain fusion ignition, which means that the reaction produces more energy that was given to it. The NIF, a $1.2B facility, and the science behind it have a long history that features numerous discoveries and a significant impact on the world we live in today. Overall, not only does the NIF provide a means for the United States to employ clean energy usage, but it also allows the United States to understand more about the physical world in an environment right at home. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s interest in inertial confinement fusion began in a 1957 meeting about the peaceful …show more content…
Essentially, the beams of laser are targeted at the deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen) so that the outer layer explodes. Then, in accordance with Newton’s Third Law, the inner part of the target explodes inwards causing the fuel to be compressed, generate a shock wave, and therefore burn the fuel in the center so that it can go on itself. The inertial confinement component of the fusion comes because the plasma rapidly expands to the outer layers, which are cooler, but the capsule does not expand fast enough. Another discovery made was in regards to ensuring that the procedure and results are as accurate as possible. The engineering team designed a control system for the National Ignition Facility and had to account for over 60,000 data points (motors, sensors, cameras, etc). Using computerized monitoring, the team was able to ensure that the 192 beams hit within 50 micrometers of their targeted spot on the spherical capsule containing deuterium and tritium. This remarkable level of accuracy is exceptionally important for calculations and has helped further research on nuclear fusion. As important as discoveries are, they are essentially useless without having a real world