New target facility will help unlock plutonium’s secrets

June 10, 2022- 
LLNL’s plutonium target fabrication facility includes two large gloveboxes. One houses a diamond turning capability that allows precision machining of samples, particularly for EOS targets. The second glovebox allows expanded sample preparation and assembly and also adds coating capability to deposit layers of interest directly on plutonium, eliminating glue bonds. Improving our understanding of the physical characteristics of plutonium as it ages is a vital aspect of maintaining the reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent in the absence of underground testing. The recent installation of a new plutonium target fabrication facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) aims to further progress toward that goal. Researchers have developed...

Delivering Exceptional Promise

June 10, 2022- 
An Update on Early and Mid-Career Recognition Award Recipients Lawrence Livermore’s Early and Mid-Career Recognition (EMCR) Program acknowledges the exceptional scientific, technical, and engineering contributions of individuals 4 to 16 years into their professional careers who have made significant mission-critical contributions at the Laboratory. Since the inception of the EMCR Program in...

Polymer Production Enclave Puts Additive Manufacturing on the Fast Track

June 9, 2022- 
Since its establishment, Lawrence Livermore has played a critical role in designing components for the Nuclear Security Enterprise (NSE), and more recently, in developing additively manufactured polymer parts to replace aging weapons stockpile parts. Additive manufacturing (AM)—the layer-by-layer technique of printing 3D objects from a digital model—gained traction at Livermore in 2009 after...

Hydrodynamic Experiments Support Stockpile Stewardship

June 8, 2022- 
Inside a heavily shielded chamber with 1.8-meter-thick concrete walls, high explosives detonate around a mass of inert test material. Subjected to an intense shock wave, the material briefly acts like a liquid. Advanced diagnostic equipment installed throughout the chamber captures thousands of data points and x-ray images from almost every angle in a split second. The hydrodynamic test—so...

Nature paper describes the target and laser designs that achieved a burning plasma at Lawrence Livermore

Jan. 26, 2022- 
One of the last remaining milestones in fusion research before attaining ignition and self-sustaining energy production is creating a burning plasma. In this state, the fusion reactions themselves become the dominant source of heating in the plasma, but do not yet overcome all mechanisms of energy loss. A burning plasma state was achieved on November 2020 and February 2021 at Lawrence...

Ironing out the interiors of exoplanets

Jan. 13, 2022- 
The discovery of more than 4,500 extra-solar planets has created a need for modelling their interior structure and dynamics. As it turns out, iron plays a key role. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators have used lasers at the National Ignition Facility to experimentally determine the high-pressure melting curve and structural properties of pure iron up...

Lab’s ACT-UP awards focus on collaborative university research

Jan. 12, 2022- 
With a focus on increasing joint research efforts between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and universities, the Lab’s Weapon Physics and Design (WPD) Academic Collaboration Team University Program (ACT-UP) has presented this year’s ACT-UP awards. Now in its third year, the ACT-UP awards were created to encourage and advance strategic partnerships among universities with a focus on the...

LLNL scientist honored as 2022 American Astronomical Society fellow

Jan. 7, 2022- 
LLNL physicist Richard Klein has been selected as a 2022 fellow of the American Astronomical Society. Klein, who was selected “for broad and influential contributions to computational astrophysics, for scientific achievements on radiatively-driven stellar winds and star formation theory and for training a generation of students and postdoctoral scholars,” is one of 23 members honored as...

Study reveals cause of 3D asymmetry in ICF implosions

Feb. 25, 2021- 
Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions require very high levels of symmetry in order to reach the high densities and temperatures required for fusion induced self-heating. Even percent-level deviations from perfect spherical symmetry can lead to significant distortions of the implosion and ultimately degrade fusion performance. To that end, researchers from Lawrence Livermore...

Lab's ACT-UP awards focus on collaborative research

Jan. 12, 2021- 
Gaia Righi, Ph.D. candidate from UC San Diego, works on a project titled “Dynamic Strength of Iron Under Phase Changing Conditions.” Righi and faculty adviser Marc Meyers work with Hye-Sook Park and Rob Rudd from LLNL. The team was awarded an ACT-UP award last year.  With a focus on increasing joint research efforts between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and universities, the Lab’s Weapon Physics and Design (WPD) Academic Collaboration Team (ACT) University Program has awarded this year’s ACT-UP awards. Now in its second year, the ACT-UP awards were created to encourage and advance strategic partnerships among universities with a...

The Sierra Era

Nov. 19, 2020- 
This three-dimensional simulation of an idealized inertial confinement fusion implosion shows turbulent mixing in a spherical geometry. Livermore’s Sierra supercomputer makes high-fidelity calculations like this routine, yielding crucial insights into physical phenomena.Lawrence Livermore’s high-performance computing (HPC) facilities house some of the fastest supercomputers in the world, including the flagship Sierra machine. Online for more than a year, Sierra primarily runs simulations for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program. Sierra substantially increases the Laboratory’s ability to...

Lab stands tall on bi-annual list of Top500 supercomputers

Nov. 17, 2020- 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) can lay claim to housing four of the world’s 100 most powerful supercomputers, more than any other institution according to the TOP500 List announced Monday during the virtual Supercomputing 2020 conference (SC20). The 125-petaFLOP peak Sierra, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s flagship supercomputer, remained third in the world...