The US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, is almost ready to fire up its 192 laser beams to recreate the Sun's fusion burn.
The last of the project's 6,206 optics units ? the mostly glass and crystal components that focus the lasers onto a tiny target ? was installed on 26 January. It marked the end of the US$3.5-billion facility's construction ahead of a federal deadline of 31 March.
After years of delay and hundreds of millions of dollars in overrun costs, "the project is, for all intents and purposes, completed", says NIF director Edward Moses. He will now focus on ramping up the 'shots' of laser light. On hitting the target, the shots create temperatures of more than 100 million degrees and pressures that are thousands of times greater than at Earth's core, which scientists hope will trigger nuclear fusion. Although smaller lasers have achieved petawatt (1015 W) powers in femtosecond (10?15 s) bursts, NIF's total energy will exceed that of any current facility. Its goal is to reach 1.8 million joules, far greater than the 40,000 joules generated by the current leader: OMEGA at the University of Rochester, New York. It is likely to remain at the top until a similar facility, the Laser Mégajoule near Bordeaux, France, is completed in 2010.
Note: this would be a great grand pappy of a fusion drive. ;)
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