NIF achieves target gain greater than unity for the first time

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At the National Ignition Facility, 2.05 MJ of 351 nm ultraviolet laser light delivered to an indirect-drive target produced a total fusion yield reported in Physical Review Letters as approximately 3.1 MJ, and in the laboratory's public announcement as 3.15 MJ, giving a target gain of about 1.5 and significantly exceeding the Lawson criterion for ignition. This is scientific breakeven with respect to the laser energy delivered to the target, and it is the first time any laboratory achieved it. It is not wall-plug breakeven: firing that shot required on the order of 300 to 400 MJ drawn from the electrical grid, with about 330 MJ stored in the capacitor banks, an overall efficiency well below one percent. No electricity was generated. The Physical Review Letters paper reporting the result carried more than 1,370 authors from 44 institutions.

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