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NIF Fuel Gain Named a ‘Top Breakthrough’ of 2014
Physics World, an international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics, has named NIF’s achievement of
fuel gain one of its top 10 “Breakthroughs of the Year.” The achievement also was ranked No. 13 on Discover Magazine’s
list of the top 100 science stories of 2014 and was cited as one of the top 10 physics news stories of 2014 by APS News,
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the American Physical Society’s online news site.
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Ignition—the process of releasing fusion energy equal to or greater than the amount of energy used to confine the fuel—
has long been considered the “holy grail” of inertial confinement fusion science. Before achieving ignition, a key step
along the path is to have “fuel gains” greater than unity, where the energy generated through fusion reactions exceeds
the amount of energy deposited into the fusion fuel and alpha-particle self-heating of the fusing region.
August
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Science & Technology
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NIF—the world’s largest and highest-energy laser—was the first facility to reach the milestone of achieving fuel gains
greater than one with significant levels of alpha heating. In a paper published in the Feb. 12 online issue of the journal
Nature, scientists detailed a series of experiments conducted on NIF which showed an order of magnitude improvement
in yield performance over previous experiments.
July
June
A NIF inertial confinement fusion target.
“Creating the conditions for sustained nuclear fusion to occur in the laboratory has proven notoriously challenging, but
persevering is essential because success could lead to safe and clean sources of energy,” said Hamish Johnston, editor
of physicsworld.com. “By obtaining a fuel gain of greater than one, the team working at the National Ignition Facility has
taken an important step towards realizing fusion energy.”
The Physics World editorial team recognized the achievements from 2014 in a range of topics from nuclear physics to
nanotechnology. The top 10 breakthroughs were selected using the following criteria: fundamental importance of
research; significant advance in knowledge; strong connection between theory and experiment; and general interest to all
physicists.
Discover’s 100 top stories of 2014 was a list of “the best in science from the past year.” The article on the NIF
accomplishment said the research is a “crucial milestone toward tapping the power of lab-made fusion.”
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