Key fusion goal reached for the first time

The National Ignition Facility in the US has has announced they’ve reached a key step towards creating energy using nuclear fusion.

In a world first, the team has shown that the energy generated during a fusion test has exceeded the energy deposited into the fusion fuel. It’s worth noting that only about 1 percent of the laser’s total energy ever reached the fuel, however the achievement is one of the first exciting announcements to come from the facility since the US government shifted the facilities focus more towards nuclear weapons research in 2012 following a series of unsuccessful tests.

In fact, by moving to a new technique the team say the fusion yield has increased by a factor of 10 over previous experiments. The new method involves modifying the timing of laser pulses used to compress the fuel, stopping the instability that was previously causing it to break up.

The key goal for the fusion program is to release a greater amount of energy than that used to confine the fuel.