Introduction to the National Ignition Facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a stadium-sized facility containing a 192-beam, 1.8-Megajoule, 500-Terawatt, ultraviolet laser system together with a 10-meter diameter target chamber with room for nearly 100 experimental diagnostics. NIF will be the world's largest and most energetic laser experimental system, providing a scientific center to study inertial confinement fusion and matter at extreme energy densities and pressures. NIF's energetic laser beams will compress fusion targets to conditions required for thermonuclear bum, liberating more energy than required to initiate the fusion reactions. Other NIF experiments will study physical processes at temperatures approaching 10{sup 8} K and 10{sup 11} bar, conditions that exist naturally only in the interior of stars, planets and in nuclear weapons. NIF has completed the first phases of its laser commissioning program. The first four beams of NIF have generated 106 kilojoules of infrared light and over 16 kJ at the third harmonic (351 nm). NIF's target experimental systems are being commissioned and experiments have begun. This paper provides a detailed look the NIF laser systems, laser and optical performance and results from recent laser commissioning shots, and plans for commissioning diagnostics for experiments on NIF.