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All 50 episodes of the Big Ideas Lab now available on LLNL podcast page
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Big Ideas Lab podcast marks a new milestone with the release of its 50th episode. The latest episode, delving into high-performance computing for energy innovation, can be found alongside the entire series on the new LLNL podcast page. Since its debut in September 2024, the Big Ideas Lab has aimed to rethink how science…
LLNL partners with Inertia to develop fusion energy technology
Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are partnering with San Francisco Bay Area fusion energy startup Inertia Enterprises Inc. to advance fusion laser technology, as well as inertial fusion target manufacturing and designs. This collaboration is an expansive and integrated private sector-led partnership, unique in the history of LLNL and the DOE…
LLNL delivers advanced gamma-ray spectrometer for NASA’s Dragonfly mission to explore Titan
Hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth, the landscape of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, bears a striking resemblance to our own planet — but with dunes of hydrocarbon sands rather than silica sands, and rain, rivers, lakes and seas of liquid methane and ethane rather than liquid water. The NASA Dragonfly mission is set to explore this world in unprecedented detail…
Livermore Institute for Fusion Technology honored for innovation
The East Bay Economic Development Alliance (EDA) honored Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)’s Livermore Institute for Fusion Technology (LIFT) with a 2026 East Bay Innovation Award. Livermore Mayor John Marchand nominated LIFT for the award in the Catalyst Category. LLNL scientists Bassem El Dasher and Wayne Miller accepted the award on behalf of the entire LIFT…
Big Ideas Lab explores how HPC for Energy Innovation advances U.S. industry
Some of the toughest challenges in American manufacturing are being solved without ever stepping onto a factory floor. Inside supercomputers, scientists are modeling systems too complex, costly or time-consuming to test in the real world. In the latest episode of the Big Ideas Lab podcast, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) spotlights the High-Performance…
Big Ideas Lab podcast explores energetic materials and the science behind explosive performance
In less than a millionth of a second, a high explosive can release its energy, generating pressures and temperatures that push materials to their limits. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), scientists in the Energetic Materials Center (EMC) study these extreme conditions using experiments, computation and specialized facilities. The latest episode of the Big…
Big Ideas Lab podcast zooms in on tiny targets
At the end of an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), the target, measuring just two centimeters, is mostly obliterated. The gold plating, the high-density carbon and months of meticulous assembly vanish in an instant. That’s the point. In that flash, the target becomes what NIF is built…
LLNL, Meta co-develop groundbreaking polymer-chemistry dataset for training AI models
Polymers are fundamental to our daily lives, serving as the core components for a wide array of goods, including clothing, packaging, transportation infrastructure, construction materials and electronics. Advances in polymer science open pathways for recycling and upcycling waste materials into more valuable chemical feedstocks. They also can have an outsized environmental…
Advanced Radiographic Capability achievements featured in Physics of Plasmas
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the hottest place on earth for the briefest of moments during an experiment. Now, it can be one of the brightest places thanks to the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC), NIF’s laser-within-the-laser. How this is possible and how it’s measured is detailed in the cover paper of the December 2025…
LLNL’s energy scale-up brainstorming event focused on accelerating pilot-ready technologies
Solving tomorrow’s challenges in energy security requires scientists to develop new pathways to streamline innovation. To help achieve this goal, the Global Security Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently hosted an “Energy Scale-up Brainstorming Day.” More than 60 researchers across a broad range of expertise gathered to engage in interactive…
Two LLNL scientists elected as 2026 Optica fellows
Optica recently elected 121 members from 23 countries to the society’s 2026 fellow class. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists Mark Henesian and Brent Stuart were among those honored by the scientific society. Optica fellows are selected based on outstanding contributions to research, business, education, engineering and service to Optica and the optics…
Pandora mission demonstrates new model for low-cost, high-impact science
On Monday, Jan. 12, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in partnership with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and Blue Canyon Technologies, announced the successful launch of the Pandora satellite into Earth’s orbit, initiating a yearlong mission to advance atmospheric characterization of planets beyond our solar system, also known as exoplanets. Pandora…
LLNL and Energy I-Corps take science from big ideas to big market impact
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) pursues big ideas to solve the most important security challenges facing the U.S. and the world. In that pursuit, scientific breakthroughs with market potential are discovered, protected and licensed to (or collaborated on) with industry partners through a process called technology transfer. LLNL’s Innovation and Partnerships…
LLNL, UT & UCSD win Gordon Bell Prize with exascale tsunami forecasting
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Oden Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) on Nov. 20 were awarded the prestigious 2025 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Gordon Bell Prize for developing a real-time tsunami early-warning framework…
Gordon Bell finalist team pushes scale of rocket simulation on El Capitan
Researchers used Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) exascale supercomputer El Capitan to perform the largest fluid dynamics simulation ever — surpassing one quadrillion degrees of freedom in a single computational fluid dynamics (CFD) problem. The team focused the effort on rocket–rocket plume interactions. El Capitan is funded by the National Nuclear Security…
El Capitan retains title as world’s fastest supercomputer in latest Top500
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) El Capitan once again claimed the top spot on the Top500 List of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, announced today at the 2025 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC25) conference in St. Louis. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) first exascale…
Unique resin allows 3D-printing method to add and subtract
Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is normally a one-way street. In a digital light processing (DLP) printer, a structured pattern is projected onto a layer of liquid resin, which cures and solidifies. This builds an object up, layer-by-layer. But if the print isn’t exactly right, there’s no easy way to fix it after the fact: it usually ends up in the trash. In a new…
LLNL-led fusion energy hub expands roster of diode experts
The STARFIRE Hub for inertial fusion energy (IFE), led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has added five new members to its Diode Technology Working Group. These organizations add further breadth to world-class expertise in diode technology, strengthening STARFIRE’s collaborative effort to advance the technology basis for IFE. “We’re excited to welcome a…
Lab scientists win four 2025 R&D 100 awards
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have earned four awards among the top 100 inventions worldwide. The trade journal R&D World Magazine recently announced the winners of the awards, often called the “Oscars of innovation,” recognizing new commercial products, technologies and materials that are available for sale or license for their…
Annual LLNL tech transfer report highlights how partnerships advance technologies to market
Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, like Lawrence Livermore (LLNL), offer unique opportunities to collaborate on and license scientific breakthroughs with market potential. In its Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Technology Transfer Annual Report, LLNL highlights how industry partnerships accelerate innovation and deliver real-world impact. In FY24, LLNL reported 201…
