page_title: National Ignition Facility
hierarchical_section_title: National Ignition Facility
caption_attribution_description: English: The exterior of the National Ignition Facility, a ten-story building the size of three football fields, is pictured at sunset. NIF is the world's largest and highest-energy laser system and the nation's largest scientific project. It is located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California.
context_page_description: The National Ignition Facility, is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion research device, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. NIF uses lasers to heat and compress a small amount of hydrogen fuel with the goal of inducing nuclear fusion reactions. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain, and to support nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear weapons. NIF is the largest and most energetic ICF device built to date, and the largest laser in the world.
  The basic concept of all ICF devices is to rapidly collapse a small amount of fuel so the pressure and temperature reach fusion-relevant conditions. NIF does this by heating the outer layer of a small plastic sphere with the world's most powerful laser. The energy from the laser is so intense that it causes the plastic to explode, squeezing down on the fuel inside. The speed of this process is enormous, with the fuel reaching a peak around 350 km/s, raising the density from about that of water to about 100 times that of lead.
context_section_description: The National Ignition Facility (NIF), is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. NIF uses lasers to heat and compress a small amount of hydrogen fuel with the goal of inducing nuclear fusion reactions. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain, and to support nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear weapons. NIF is the largest and most energetic ICF device built to date, and the largest laser in the world.
  The basic concept of all ICF devices is to rapidly collapse a small amount of fuel so the pressure and temperature reach fusion-relevant conditions. NIF does this by heating the outer layer of a small plastic sphere with the world's most powerful laser. The energy from the laser is so intense that it causes the plastic to explode, squeezing down on the fuel inside. The speed of this process is enormous, with the fuel reaching a peak around 350 km/s, raising the density from about that of water to about 100 times that of lead. The delivery of energy and the adiabatic process during collapse raises the temperature of the fuel to hundreds of millions of degrees. At these temperatures, fusion processes occur very rapidly, before the energy generated in the fuel causes it to explode outward as well.
  Construction on the NIF began in 1997 but management problems and technical delays slowed progress into the early 2000s. Progress after 2000 was smoother, but compared to initial estimates, NIF was completed five years behind schedule and was almost four times more expensive than originally budgeted. Construction was certified complete on 31 March 2009 by the U.S. Department of Energy, and a dedication ceremony took place on 29 May 2009. The first large-scale laser target experiments were performed in June 2009 and the first "integrated ignition experiments" (which tested the laser's power) were declared completed in October 2010.
  Bringing the system to its full potential was a lengthy process that was carried out from 2009 to 2012. During this period a number of experiments were worked into the process under the National Ignition Campaign, with the goal of reaching ignition just after the laser reached full power, some time in the second half of 2012. The Campaign officially ended in September 2012, at about ​¹⁄₁₀ the conditions needed for ignition. Experiments since then have pushed this closer to ​¹⁄₃, but considerable theoretical and practical work is required if the system is ever to reach ignition. Since 2012, NIF has been used primarily for materials science and weapons research.
caption: The National Ignition Facility, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
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