In December 2022, scientists from Livermore National Laboratory named it after him. E. Lawrence (LLNL) at the NIF facility achieved fusion firing for the first time; this was a self-sustaining fusion reaction that produced more energy than was used to initiate it. The scientific community approached the study with extreme caution. Expert evaluation took nearly a year and only recently supported the authors’ conclusions: Thermonuclear fusion using lasers works.

Experts evaluated five studies by LLNL scientists submitted for publication in one of the most prestigious journals for physicists Physical Examination Letters. All statements of the authors of the work were checked once again by independent experts. The numbers matched. In this experiment, now dated at the beginning of December 2022, 2.05 MJ of energy was applied to the fuel capsule, releasing 3.15 MJ of energy, approximately 1.5 times more. Scientists have been working for approximately 50 years towards this goal, which can be considered a turning point in the development of thermonuclear fusion energy.

Then, in mid-2023, after improving the fuel capsule, changing the volume of the fuel, changing the ignition conditions and optimizing the lasers, an even better output was achieved: 3.88 MJ for the same input energy. This was the highest achievement to date in the field of inertial thermonuclear fusion, in which almost two hundred powerful lasers (192 pieces) were focused on a special capsule containing a mixture of 220 μg of deuterium and tritium. A pressure of up to 600 billion atmospheres and a temperature of up to 151 million °C were created around the fuel. And this led to the initiation of a self-sustaining fusion reaction in which hydrogen atoms fuse and transfer energy into space along with newborn helium atoms and neutrons.

Published in magazine Physical Examination Letters Business It is too early to talk about the practical value of research. In fact, starting and maintaining the operation of the lasers during the experiment required twice as much energy as was released during the synthesis process. The most important thing for us is that the inertial method of thermonuclear fusion has proven its efficiency and can become the basis for starting controlled thermonuclear reactions in the future.