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Lasers and Optical S&T
LLNL conducts milestone nuclear survivability experiment at NIF, moving weapons modernization forward
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has conducted an experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to assess the ability of U.S. nuclear weapons to survive encounters with adversary missile defenses and reach their targets. This experiment demonstrated a new capability to analyze nuclear materials under extreme conditions, advancing stockpile modernization…
From inception to ignition and beyond: Suhas Bhandarkar’s target fabrication career
Tiny parts and absolute meticulousness define Suhas Bhandarkar’s award-winning 20-year career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). As group leader for Target Fabrication Science and Technology (S&T), he leads a team that helps transform LLNL’s physicists’ bold ideas into reality at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Bhandarkar’s path began with a B.S…
LLNL joins inaugural California Fusion Energy Convening
Leaders from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and its Livermore Institute of Fusion Technology (LIFT) shaped the agenda of the first-ever gathering of California fusion energy leaders from across the public sector, industry and academia. “California is, without question, the center of fusion innovation,” LLNL Director Kim Budil said during opening remarks on…
Vincent Tang to lead LLNL’s National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Directorate
LLNL Director Kim Budil has named Vincent Tang as the principal associate director (PAD) to lead the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science directorate (NIF&PS), the LLNL program that advances the NIF and world-leading laser and photon science capabilities for stockpile modernization and critical national missions. NIF is the world’s most energetic laser and is…
HEDS fellow Patricia Cho probes cosmic mysteries
The High Energy Density Science (HEDS) Center fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) encourages postdoctoral scientists to expand their horizons and pursue new research possibilities related to the study of matter and energy under extreme conditions. For HEDS Center fellow and experimental physicist Patricia Cho, the fellowship has allowed her to…
Enabling an enabling technology
With the ability to print metal structures with complex shapes and unique mechanical properties, metal additive manufacturing (AM) could be revolutionary. However, without a better understanding of how metal AM structures behave as they are 3D printed, the technology remains too unreliable for widespread adoption in manufacturing and part quality remains a challenge…
Big Ideas Lab podcast delves into advanced lasers
It’s been laughingly said that “LLNL” stands for “lasers, lasers and nothing but lasers.” For physicists Tom Spinka and Jackson Williams, it can certainly feel that way. “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is world-renowned as one of the places to be, if not the place to be, for lasers,” Spinka said. LLNL’s best-known laser system is the National Ignition Facility (NIF…
Novel probe captures every scene of a plasma movie all at once
Plasma, ionized gas and the fourth state of matter, makes up over 99 percent of the ordinary matter in the universe. Understanding its properties is critical for developing fusion energy sources, modeling astrophysical objects like stars and improving manufacturing techniques for semiconductors in modern cell phones. But watching and determining what happens inside high…
LLNL optical engineer Diana Chen named SPIE Senior Member for 2025
Diana Chen, an optical engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has been named a Senior Member of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Chen is one of 92 SPIE members honored worldwide as part of the organization’s 2025 cohort for their professional experience, active involvement with the optics community and significant technical…
New book documents optics innovations that were integral to ignition
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a chandelier “holding a system of high-precision optics,” according to a newly published book. But unlike a delicate chandelier illuminating a room, NIF’s thousands of optical components are able to resist or survive damage even under the enormous strain of amplifying and directing NIF…
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…
Big Ideas Lab podcast explores the world’s largest camera
During the next decade, the world’s newest telescope will detect about 20 billion galaxies, representing the first time a telescope will observe more galaxies than there are people on Earth. LLNL researchers designed the major optical components for the telescope camera, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera and part of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory…
Big Ideas Lab Podcast looks back at the laser guide star
Late one evening about 30 years ago, a beam of light shot into the sky from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), creating confusion and awe in the surrounding community. It wasn’t a UFO, as some people feared, but the start of a revolution in astronomy. That beam of a light was a demonstration of the laser guide star, which would go on to light up the night sky…
First-of-its-kind microscope takes 3D ghost images of nanoparticles
Ghost imaging is like a game of Battleship. Instead of seeing an object directly, scientists use entangled photons to remove the background and reveal its silhouette. This method can be used to study microscopic environments without much light, which is helpful for avoiding photodamage to biological samples. So far, quantum ghost imaging has been limited to two dimensions,…
ELI and LLNL strengthen collaboration
With more than a decade of productive partnership in advancing high-power laser technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) are looking to the future. The two institutions have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding that builds on their existing strategic…
High explosives in slow motion: freezing molecules in place shows chemical reactions
Safe and effective high explosives are critical to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) mission of stockpile stewardship. It is relatively simple to study the composition of such material before a detonation or examine the soot-like remnants afterward. But the chemistry in between, which dictates much of the detonation process, evades experimental interrogation…
LLNL’s high-resolution telescope system to usher in a new era of lunar exploration
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is playing a pivotal role supporting a groundbreaking lunar imaging effort in collaboration with Firefly Aerospace. A LLNL state-of-the-art telescope system will be deployed onboard Firefly’s Elytra orbital vehicle to enable Firefly’s new Ocula imaging service, as early as 2026. This marks the first planned commercial lunar…
LLNL will host watch party on June 23 to unveil Rubin Observatory’s first images
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will release its first set of images on June 23, 2025. The achievement marks the beginning of a new era in astronomy, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will be part of the action as it hosts a first look watch party for both staff and the public. Anyone is welcome to attend the watch party at the University of California…
Las Positas College, LLNL offer Laser Optics Workshop
Laser and Electronic Optics Technicians (LEOTs) are critical to the operation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and other laser systems. In addition to being the world’s most energetic laser and the only place where fusion ignition has been achieved in a laboratory, NIF is also the world’s largest optical instrument. But LEOTs,…
LLNL, Amazon partner on groundbreaking AI integration at the National Ignition Facility
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a data factory — when NIF’s high-energy-density physics experiments go off in the blink of an eye, valuable scientific data is the product. LLNL already leverages AI tools to manage this data, using them to improve predictive modeling capabilities and transform optics inspection and target…
