the universe for billions of years has
been lit by the fire of countless stars
in these stellar cauldrons hydrogen
nuclei are fused together to form helium
nuclei releasing energy that lights the
heavens can we build the technology to
harness this awesome energy on earth as
we approach our planet that is exactly
what's happening today
far beneath these clouds lies the
National Ignition facility located at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in Livermore California this facility
has been built to bring star power to
earth it is the world's largest and
highest energy laser system containing a
hundred ninety two laser beams NIF will
explore controlled nuclear fusion to
ensure global security enable
sustainable clean energy and advance our
understanding of the universe 85 feet
tall the laser and target area building
is the size of three football fields
inside are two parallel laser Bay's each
containing 96 beam lines in this
animation which is millions of times
slower than real time we will follow the
process for creating a miniature star in
the target chamber by riding along with
some of the laser beams the process
starts by first energizing the laser
amplifiers in the two laser bays by
dumping electrical energy stored in
capacitors into flash lamps they convert
the energy to light that is absorbed by
the laser glass in the amplifier later
when the laser pulse is passed through
the glass
they will extract this energy thereby
increasing the laser beam energy our
trip with the laser beams begins in the
master oscillator room where a very
low-energy laser pulse is created this
pulse is only twenty billionths of a
second long in duration which is a beam
of light about twenty feet long it's
amplified and then split into 48 laser
pulses which are carried over to the two
laser days using fiber-optic cables here
the 48 pulses are amplified in a
preamplifier by a factor of about 10
billion then they're split into 192
pulses and
sent into the main laser system as we
track eight of these beams through the
facility you can see the path of the
beams highlighted in red
the first amplification occurs in the
power amplifier it has five glass slabs
that were energized by the powerful
flash lamps then they travel to the main
laser cavity that directs the laser
light back and forth four times through
11 sets of laser amplifier glass in the
main amplifier system
this gives the laser beams another boost
of energy during this time optical
components ensure that the beams
maintain their required pulse shape
quality and spatial uniformity on the
final pass through the optical system
the laser light is allowed to exit
and travelled back through the beamlines
and up to the power amplifier once more
to pick up even more energy before
heading down the long stretch to the
switchyard
in total the energy of the laser beams
is increased a quadrillion times as they
travel more than 1500 meters from the
master oscillator room to the target
chamber
in the switchyard the parallel bundles
of beams are rearranged into a conical
configuration that's so they can be
focused into the center of the target
chamber and onto the target assembly the
assembly holds the spherical fuel pellet
containing hydrogen here you see the
eight beams split into two groups of
four beams each one group traveling up
any other traveling down heading for
equidistant entry ports on the target
chamber finally the means pass through
the final optics assemblies which
convert the original infrared laser
light to ultraviolent
the beams then converge on the 10
millimeter target assembly call the
whole run generating a path of x-rays
this causes the tiny target sphere to
implode and ignite in a control
self-sustaining fusion reaction the same
process that powers the Stars this will
be the start of a new journey that will
bring not only discovering an innovation
but a lasting legacy to the future