Early Saturday morning we fired a Deuterium-Tritium gas-filled Diamond capsule on the NIF. The laser used all 192 beams and delivered 1.24 Megajoules of ultraviolet laser light to the drive Hohlraum at a 350 Terawatts peak power in an ~10 nanosecond pulse.
Excellent data was obtained and for the first time ever we observed a DT neutron yield over 1E15 (early results are coming in at ~1.8E15) or approximately 5,000 Joules of neutron energy.
The yield is about twice the record we have ever produced.
Even better, the Yield over Clean, a measure of the quality of the implosion, was also very impressive and this was done with a relatively low laser energy, low laser power and low implosion velocity! Although much work remains, this bodes well for the first layered diamond experiments planned for September.
It's hard not to feel encouraged by the progress we've made with great new and planned diagnostic capabilities, promising results with diamond and high foot experiments, a team that is working extremely well together, and a go forward plan that, by and large, is well supported by the community.
