A paper by lead author Gregory S. Demos titled “Laser-damage performance of gallium-alloy liquid metal mirrors” has just been published in the journal Optical Engineering. Gregory, currently a senior at Pittsford Mendon High School, performed this work while participating in the LLE Summer High School Research Program. His work, supervised by LLE researchers Marcela Mireles and Brittany Hoffman, focused on exploring gallium-alloy–based metal mirrors, which are in liquid phase at room temperature. He investigated key performance metrics, such as reflectivity and the laser-damage–initiation mechanism under exposure to 355-nm laser pulses. This exploratory work is the first of its kind and demonstrates favorable performance characteristics of gallium-alloy metal mirrors, providing an innovative approach for the development of robust final optics in future inertial fusion energy systems. LLE researchers Brittany N. Hoffman, John C. Lambropoulos, and Marcela Mireles are co-authors of the paper.