NIF achieves breakthrough in laser fusion

On 8 August 2021, an experimental campaign conducted in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the United States of America allowed reaching a significant step toward ignition in delivering a neutron yield of more than 1.3 MJ (https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-experiment-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition). Such an achievement represents a 25X increase over the NIF’s 2018 record yield [S. Le Pape et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 245003 (2018)] and results from a deeper understanding of the physics involved and thus from several advances in the target design, as well as in target fabrication, laser precision and diagnostics, made over the last years. Laserlab-Europe, which is – among other topics – investigating laser fusion energy (https://www.laserlab-europe.eu/news-and-press/newsletter-archive/issue-26/view), congratulates the LLNL and NIF teams.