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Beyond Ignition
00:22:41
Over millennia, humanity has mastered fire, wind, steam and even the atom to fuel its progress. Now, we stand on the brink of the next monumental leap: fusion.
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- [00:02]
Narrator
Over the millennia, humans have tamed fire to light the night, captured wind to cross the seas, harnessed steam and internal combustion to power the Industrial revolution, and wielded the energy of the atom with nuclear fission power. What's next? Fusion. Previously on Big Ideas Lab, we met the scientists, engineers and innovators working at one of the most remarkable facilities in the world, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. We left the Lawrence Livermore team as they struggled to move the needle toward achieving a scientific fusion ignition. The team at the National Ignition Facility had the tools, the talent, and the drive. But creating the ideal conditions to enable ignition was proving to be a herculean, possibly impossible task.
- [01:06]
Kim Budel
When we finally turned the laser on at full scale in 2009, we started what was called the National Ignition Campaign, fully anticipating that within the first two years of running the facility, we would get ignition. And we did not even get close.
- [01:26]
Narrator
Welcome to the Big Ideas Lab. Your weekly exploration inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Hear untold stories, meet boundary pushing pioneers, and get unparalleled access inside the gates. From national security challenges to computing revolutions, discover the innovations that are shaping tomorrow. Today, the National Ignition Facility, also known as NIF, is a 10 story tall building that runs the length of three football fields. Inside are two parallel laser bays, each containing 96 beamlines, for a total of 192 of the world's highest energy lasers, each one over a foot wide. Located on the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory campus, construction of the facility began in 1997 and finished in 2009. And since operations began, one of its primary purposes has been to achieve fusion ignition. Fusion ignition refers to a condition in nuclear physics where the energy generated by the fusion process itself produces more fusion energy than the amount of laser energy delivered to the NIF target. These experiments represent not only the initial strides toward a potentially infinite source of clean energy, but also generate crucial data that ensures the reliability, safety and security of the United States nuclear deterrent. As Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's director Kim Budel mentioned at the top of this episode, after NIF began experimentation, the expectation was that ignition would be achieved within a few years. A decade later, and they were still coming up short. So what was in their way? Variable.
- [03:20]
Michael Staderman
The laser energy is so high that if you design the target wrong, you can actually bounce light into areas where it shouldn't go. And in between, shrapnel and stray light, damage optics or glass or other expensive pieces that we don't want to damage.
- [03:33]
Theresa Bailey
After variable, supercomputing is essential. The ICF program uses modeling and simulation to drive their understanding of design forward. But that experimental loop also informs the codes. So you can't really do one without the other.
- [03:49]
Tayab Suratwala
After variable, there are probably around 10,000 what we call large optics and around 30,000 or so smaller optics. And when I say large optic, we're talking about half meter scale and larger. You usually don't have components of that scale, but we have 10,000 components that are of that size.
- [04:11]
Narrator
A facility like NIF involves virtually all types of teams within Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a combination of expertise and technologies brought together in hopes of finding that elusive ideal environment for ignition.
- [04:26]
Richard Towne
There's many disciplines that come to play in order to make a successful experiment.
- [04:30]
Narrator
Richard Towne is the lab's associate program director for inertial confinement fusion science.
- [04:37]
Richard Towne
And that starts with co developers who develop the code that we then use to simulate and make predictions of the experiment. There's the laser builders themselves, there's target fab, who have to assemble these precision targets. We have to fuel these targets, right? We have to put deuterium, tritium in there. How do we get that in there? So we drill this tiny hole sitting on a human. Then we have to attach a filter to that. And we have a guy who does that. I'm just impressed. I can't see the filter. And he works day in, day out. Then there's all the support people that go into making the laser function. So there's all the infrastructure that goes on delivering that very tailored condition. Skilled craftsmen, technicians, physicists, computer scientists, ballistic analysts. There is a big, multidisciplinary, multilaboratory effort that goes into making an experiment so successful.
- [05:46]
Narrator
So how exactly do all these teams come together to make an experiment at NIF successful? First, highly advanced computer simulations and models are used to design the experiment. Based on these specs, a target is made. This target is a small capsule, about the size of a peppercorn, containing a mixture of hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. To say that this target has to be precisely made is an understatement.
- [06:13]
Michael Staderman
The quality requirements on a target for it to function properly are extreme.
- [06:19]
Narrator
Michael Staderman, program manager for target fabrication at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, explains the role of target design in the process and why small things are needed to produce big results.
- [06:33]
Michael Staderman
When we start building the capsule, the targets, the capsule has to sit within 20 microns of a 1 millimeter canister. And then that canister gets centered to do within better than 50 microns inside the facility. And then the components themselves have to be of a very high quality too. And right now that's a primary challenge. So the capsule, for example, has to be almost perfectly round. It has to have an almost perfectly uniform wall thickness. And the margins by which that difference can exist are we're closer to talking about atoms than we're talking about hair diameters. The hair diameter is about what, 8200 microns, and the wall thickness, non uniformity that we're allowed to have is about 200 nanometers. So it's 2000ths of a hair, if you will.
- [07:19]
Narrator
This small target is placed inside the target chamber in NIF. This target chamber is a 10 meter diameter sphere surrounded with port cutouts for the 192 laser beams to get in and strike the target. Diagnostics are then positioned inside the target chamber to capture the data and measurements of what happens during the experiment. Once everything is set, NIF's laser system is activated. A weak laser pulse is released and guided through the facility. This single laser beam is energized and split several times until there are a total of 192 laser beams. These beams then begin oscillating back and forth in the facility through laser amplifier glass to increase their energy. Using optics to direct and shape them, these laser beams are fired simultaneously at the target capsule. This process, from initial laser release to target impact takes 20 billionths of a second. In that time, the lasers have increased in energy by a factor of 10 billion and traveled 4,900ft. On impact, the lasers compress the capsule to extremely high densities and the capsule is heated to several million degrees, simulating the conditions in the core of the sun. Under these extreme forces, the deuterium and tritium nuclei fuse together, releasing energy. The resulting fusion reaction and energy output are measured and analyzed, and computer simulations are updated to reflect this new data. Once the energy output from fusion exceeds the energy input from the lasers, then fusion ignition has been achieved. If the target isn't perfectly uniform, the experiment will fail. If it doesn't compress spherically, it will fail. If the laser doesn't deliver the energy with unimaginable precision, it will fail. If the simulations aren't accurate or the diagnostics don't capture the data needed to further refine experiments, then fusion ignition will forever remain elusive. Even with that facility, our critics and detractors said that it would be impossible. Jean Michel de Nicola is the lab's program co director for laser science and System engineering. First of all, because the laser would never work, it would never produce the energy that was needed to Accomplish ignition conditions or that the beams would be degraded. We have had over the past 60 years at Lawrence Zilmore multiple generations of laser facilities ranging from a few hundred joules to kilojoules. So a thousand joules to mega joule.
- [10:15]
Tayab Suratwala
Class, A million of joules, and we.
- [10:19]
Narrator
Were closer and closer. And then a leap in improvement that no one expected.
- [10:25]
Michael Staderman
NIF recently announced a record breaking energy yield of 1.3 megajoules in a single shot.
- [10:31]
Narrator
On August 8, 2021, a standard ignition experiment produced 1.35 megajoules of energy after delivering 1.9 megajoules of laser energy.
- [10:43]
Michael Staderman
This record is eight times what they achieved previously this year, 25 times greater than their previous record in 2018, and almost 1,000 times better than what they started with in 2011. Well, we first exceeded the megajoule and saw this has legs. It was actually a dramatic improvement over any result that we had before. And it was somewhat unexpected that it would be this much better and that we are actually this close already to an ignition step.
- [11:13]
Narrator
They were at the threshold of ignition. But this outcome wasn't all celebration. After the excitement died down, they were left with even more questions.
- [11:24]
Michael Staderman
We had a whole batch of 20 shells that to our eye, looked all the same, and they all looked good. And then we did repeat experiments after that shot and found that they all didn't perform as well as the original experiment, which caused us, of course, to go back and look at more of the capsule data. And then we discovered that there were flaws that we weren't accounting for beforehand.
- [11:45]
Richard Towne
By doing those deliberate systematic repaints, we could pull apart and figure out what do we need to do to take the next step. So on that we found, yep, we have to pay more attention to the symmetry of the implosion, work more on the capsule quality, and look for design improvements. So one of the design improvements is to use a bigger hammer. Putting it crudely, Myth was already looking and exploring to see if they could increase beyond its current performance limit. Turn enough dial up to 11.
- [12:25]
Narrator
So they went back to the drawing board and did just that. Turn the dial up to 11. After the experiment on August 8, 2021, the NIF team spent more than a year piecing together what had caused such a dramatically improved yield. They increased the laser's precision and energy delivered to target, improved the target quality, and fine tuned the experimental design to maximize the impact of these changes. In the late night hours of December 5, 2022, they set and prepared for a normal shot, just like they had done dozens of Times before the control room did final checks. The immense facility systems humming at the ready. Lasers towering above like cathedral pillars, all their might trained on the tiny, flawless capsule that rests at the point where the lasers would soon meet. With a deep breath, they hit go on the impossible one more time, hoping for a breakthrough that would forever change the future of science.
- [13:45]
Tayab Suratwala
We only had to say one word. Ignition.
- [13:51]
Narrator
Decades of work and aspiration came to triumph. The team had produced 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy. With 2.05 megajoules of laser energy, they had produced more energy than was delivered by the laser. In other words, they had achieved fusion ignition. December 5, 2022 was the first time this has ever been done in a laboratory anywhere on Earth, making it one of the most historic scientific achievements of the 21st century.
- [14:22]
Tayab Suratwala
It was just an amazing moment.
- [14:24]
Narrator
Tayab Suratwala is the program director for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Optics and Materials Science and Technology team.
- [14:32]
Tayab Suratwala
We met in the auditorium. That's when we had formally announced that we had achieved ignition. And some people were in tears. It was standing ovation. The mood was just so positive and everyone stood up and clapped and it was just an amazing moment. And one thing that was kind of cute during that event is all the managers, they played that song, that 80s song, the future's so bright, you gotta wear shade. So we're playing that as a background music. And the senior managers all put on sunglasses while that was going on. And I thought that was just really cute. And such a memorable moment for the team.
- [15:12]
Theresa Bailey
The optimism and the pride in the code teams themselves was the highest I've ever seen it.
- [15:20]
Narrator
Theresa Bailey, the associate program director for computational physics in the weapons simulation and Computing team, explains her team's excitement.
- [15:30]
Theresa Bailey
I was very happy to see the co teams congratulating each other. I was very happy that they felt a stake in this accomplishment. And I think it really made the careers of many people. It was a really important accomplishment for them because a lot of those people have spent most of their adult life working towards this goal and trying to develop tools that help us get to. So this was a really big deal for all of the code developers involved in this mission space.
- [16:00]
Narrator
And of course, lab director Kim Budel was there as it unfolded.
- [16:04]
Kim Budel
I think initially it was sort of surreal. There was a lot of immediate and palpable excitement in the air. There were a lot of texts swirling around after that shot. We've had some big successes where we made big steps toward ignition. Not quite getting there, but really getting much Closer than we had been before. When we actually got over that threshold, There was a little bit of disbelief because of how long we have been on this trail. It's just a very strange feeling to finally arrive at your destination like that. But after about a day or two, when the initial shock wore off and the data analysis had proceeded enough that we were really quite confident where we were, that was pretty exciting. Here, the first ever controlled fusion ignition.
- [16:52]
Narrator
Major leap forward in our search for a source of limitless and clean energy.
- [16:56]
Kim Budel
That could more energy from fusion reactions than the energy used to start the process.
- [17:02]
Narrator
Fusion ignition is the result of more than 60 years of work. Holy Grail and physics one day end our dependence on fossil fuel. The same process that gives our sun it's energy.
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Theresa Bailey
So what happens post ignition is equally as interesting as what happened leading up to it.
- [17:25]
Narrator
For the lab, innovation never stops. In the weeks after the ignition shot, while worldwide press was still ablaze, the teams at NIF were back at their desks analyzing, planning, and looking forward to the next experiment. Since first achieving ignition in December 2022, the lab has successfully repeated the achieved ignition multiple times. And many other experiments have taken place, Supporting national security and exploring our universe. New ignition experiments are testing out a different set of target capsules manufactured to reduce the defects that limited the performance of earlier shots.
- [18:02]
Kelly Hahn
We can only do this every few days, but arguably we could do this once a day. But that's not enough. That's not enough at all.
- [18:10]
Narrator
Kelly Hahn is an experimental physicist and diagnostician at the lab.
- [18:14]
Kelly Hahn
You gotta be able to do this over and over and over in a very, very high rep rate so you can keep the energy going. This is hard to fathom doing that in a facility where we destroy the target itself. So you gotta have a target that somehow stays together or we can constantly replenish it and be able to continue these high pressure conditions and keep things assembled and working.
- [18:41]
Narrator
Additionally, operators intend to boost the laser's energy to try and recreate the ideal balance for ignition. This brings new sets of challenges to the optics team, who will have to continue to develop materials that can sustain damage and be resistant used.
- [18:57]
Tayab Suratwala
There's more that we can do with this current facility. We don't have to necessarily build another facility to get that. And that will hopefully enable even higher yield experiments than what we're doing right now. Think of it like this. We're running a factory where we are pulling off optics and repairing the damage sites that the laser is creating. When we take all these laser shots, if we make optics Improvements, we reduce the amount of laser damage that occurs, and that means the rate at which we have to run the recycle loop can slow down.
- [19:30]
Narrator
Researchers and collaborators are now making plans for sustained and even higher yields to enable new stockpile stewardship and basic science applications at nif.
- [19:40]
Theresa Bailey
So now we're talking about, can we upwrite the power on NIF in some way in order to get better results, more effective results, a more efficient machine, let's say. And you know what they're using to do that? Experiments, of course. But they're also using modeling and simulation and high performance computing to make projections into the future about what's possible with an increased size of machine. And I think a lot of people are engaged in adding features to codes to help people take a look at different types of ICF facilities and what it's going to take to take a next leap in that space.
- [20:15]
Narrator
The story of achieving fusion ignition isn't just about the result. It's about a tireless decades long journey of some of science's leading minds and how one brief reaction will benefit the world.
- [20:28]
Richard Towne
There's a large number of people who contributed over the decades to make this happen. People who developed the processes to make the target, people who made the laser what the laser is today. And so many people contributed, thousands of people have contributed over the decades to make this achievement. We always want grand challenges, right? We want to see this great thing, right? Kennedy with Apollo, moon landings said, hey, we're doing this because it's hard, not because it's easy.
- [20:59]
Kelly Hahn
Whatever they do, they are driven to excellence. It's this contagious fuel that I think everybody feeds off of. You just put a really tough problem and you get these people around it and you create the right culture, you're going to solve it.
- [21:17]
Narrator
As of April 2024, the highest energy yield achieved in a successful ignition test is approximately 5 megajoules. That is enough energy to power a single 100 watt light bulb for a little over 13 and a half hours. Clearly, the world is a long way from building the first fusion power plant. But before you can run, you must walk. And ignition is that crucial first step in our journey towards much bigger goals. It sets the stage for a transformational decade to come in high energy density science and fusion research to support national security. And it is the catalyst of a potentially endless supply of clean, sustainable fusion energy. All led by the team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory invites you to join our diverse team of professionals where opportunities abound for engineers, scientists. It experts, welders, administrative and business professionals, and more at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Your contributions are not just jobs, they're a chance to make an impact. From strengthening US Security to leading the charge in revolutionary energy solutions and expanding the boundaries of scientific knowledge, our culture at the lab values collaboration, innovation, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. We're committed to nurturing your professional journey within a supportive workspace and offering a comprehensive benefits package designed to ensure your well being and secure your future. Seize the opportunity to help solve something monumental. Dive into Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's wide variety of job openings at LLNL.govcareers where you can also learn more about our application process. This is your chance to join a team dedicated to a mission that matters. Make your mark. Visit llnl.govcareers today to discover the roles waiting for you. Remember, your expertise might just be the spotlight of our next podcast interview. Don't delay. Uncover the myriad of opportunities available at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Thank you for tuning in to Big Ideas Lab. If you loved what you heard, please let us know by leaving a rating and review. And if you haven't already, don't forget to hit the Follow or Subscribe button in your podcast app to keep up with our latest episode. Thanks for listening.