General ILL seminar
organised by College 3
Tuesday September 23, 2025 at 10h30
Seminar room 110-111, ILL 50, 1st floor
Zoom link:
Password: SeminarC3
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“ Advances in Measuring the Dynamics of Thermonuclear Burn in the Laboratory ”
R. H. Dwyer
Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
Recent advances in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) have led to thermonuclear ignition in laboratory with D-T fusion yields in excess of 5 MJ, a gain over the driver energy of > 2. This has enabled, for the first time, burning fusion plasmas to be studied and measured in the laboratory. Advances in gas Cherenkov detectors and pulse-dilation tube technology advanced the suite of reaction history diagnostics at the NIF, with <10 ps temporal resolutions being routinely used. These diagnostics enable the fusion reaction rate as a function of time to be measured with signatures of the timing of the onset of ignition and burn propagation in the fusion fuel identified in the ICF implosion. These measurements have been critical for understanding the physics of fusion burn and are being used to provide metrics for future high performance facilities.
Hanno Filter (College 3 Secretary)