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(Jacob Long/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) In December 2022, scientists at the US National Ignition Facility announced a historic milestone: for the first time, their laser-powered fusion reaction had 'broken even', producing more energy than it consumed. But advances as big as this need to be rigorously checked – and that can take some time. Importantly, a series of papers detailing the experimental design, technological advancements, and results of the initial breakthrough reaction have just passed peer review, meaning researchers not involved in the work have vetted the methods and findings in order to check the sums. "This achievement is the...

A group of U.S. scientists say they have repeated their landmark energy feat - a nuclear fusion reaction that produces more energy than is put into it. But this time, they say the experiment produced an even higher energy yield than one in December...the lab "won't be discussing further details" of the July experiment until after more analysis.

Preamplifiers that boost laser beams at the National Ignition Facility. (LLNL/Damien Jemison) PHYSICS ========================================================================= A major milestone has been breached in the quest for fusion energy. For the first time, a fusion reaction has achieved a record 1.3 megajoule energy output – and for the first time, exceeding energy absorbed by the fuel used to trigger it. Although there's still some way to go, the result represents a significant improvement on previous yields: eight times greater than experiments conducted just a few months prior, and 25 times greater than experiments conducted in 2018. It's a huge achievement. Physicists at the...

Sailing through the smooth waters of vacuum, a photon of light moves at around 300 thousand kilometers (186 thousand miles) a second. This sets a firm limit on how quickly a whisper of information can travel anywhere in the Universe. While this law isn't likely to ever be broken, there are features of light which don't play by the same rules. Manipulating them won't hasten our ability to travel to the stars, but they could help us clear the way to a whole new class of laser technology. Physicists have been playing hard and fast with the speed limit of...

Near term Commercial Fusion Power Possible - Laser induced fusion of ultra-dense deuterium with double net energy gain has been produced and gain of 20 times is within reach energy, fusion, laser, materials, nuclear, physics, science Facebook Twitter linkedin google Reddit Researchers at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Iceland are researching a new type of nuclear fusion process. This produces almost no neutrons but instead fast, heavy electrons (muons), since it is based on nuclear reactions in ultra-dense heavy hydrogen (deuterium). The new fusion process can take place in relatively small laser-fired fusion reactors fuelled by heavy...

It may look like any average building but behind closed doors could lie the answer to safe renewable energy of the future. Here at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore California, scientists are aiming to build the world's first sustainable fusion reactor by 'creating a miniature star on Earth'. Following a series of key experiments over the last few weeks, the £2.2 billion project has inched a little closer to its goal of igniting a workable fusion reaction by 2012.