News Archives - Laboratory for Laser Energetics

Photo of officials cutting a ribbon in front of the MTW-OPAL Target Chamber.

Ribbon Cut on New MTW-OPAL Target Chamber

On Friday, July 17, a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrated the new MTW-OPAL target chamber. LLE has traditionally focused on science created by “long-pulse” lasers, but the development of chirped-pulse amplification and…

Black and white image of Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou.

Chirped-Pulse Amplification at 40

LLE’s Nobel-Winning Innovation that Revolutionized Laser Science Introduction Forty years ago, when then-LLE graduate student Donna Strickland was racing to submit her very first scientific research paper outlining a new…

The OMEGA target chamber at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics

Celebrating 30 Years of OMEGA

An Enduring Legacy of Leadership and Innovation LLE’s Omega Laser Facility, the largest laser facility at any academic institution in the world and a premier high-energy-density science research center, is…

Artistic interpretation of Flying Focus, two blue rings and an orange ring with waves of blue and orange.

Flying Focus Enables a New Regime of Laser-Plasma Acceleration

Congratulations to LLE Assistant Scientist Charlie Arrowsmith and his coauthors, a team of scientists from the PULSE (Plasma & Ultrafast Laser Science & Engineering) Division and Laser Development Group, on…

Figure showing four implosion shells.

Igumenshchev Paper on Wetted-Foam Target Stability Selected as Editor’s Pick in Physics of Plasmas

Congratulations to LLE senior scientist Igor Igumenshchev and coauthors Alexander Shvydky, Valeri Goncharov, Andrey Solodov, Adrien Pineau, Riccardo Betti, and Jim Knauer, whose paper “Wetted-Foam Target Stability for Laser-Direct-Drive Inertial…

Audience seated in rows of chairs attending a presentation in a large, circular event space with floor-to-ceiling windows and tall gray curtains. A speaker stands at a podium in front of a projection screen, while natural light fills the room through the expansive windows overlooking trees outside. Modern pendant lights hang from the high ceiling above the gathering.

Recent Phelps Colloquium Lecture Showcases LLE Achievements

Earlier this spring, LLE employees and members of the University of Rochester community attended a lecture by Dustin Froula, LLE Distinguished Scientist and Plasma and Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering…

Group photo of students in front of the National Ignition Facility wall sign.

The Opportunity of a Lifetime

Students Gain Rare Access to Some of the Countryʼs Leading Science Facilities For most undergraduates, national laboratories exist only as names on research papers or distant career possibilities. This past…

The OMEGA target chamber at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics

Fusion Science for High-Yield Applications

Current Status of Inertial Confinement Fusion Research December 5, 2022, marked a major milestone for humankind. On this day, a team led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) used the…

Image of a computer-simulated image of an imploding capsule and a graph on the right depicting GFLOPs of new High-Performance Computing Systems at LLE by Year.

Simulation Impossible

Inside the Computational Science Infrastructure Driving LLE’s Research Much of the most important work at LLE happens not just in a lab but on a computer, where plasma behaviors are…

Streaked spectrometer image showing the ripple-like pattern produced by SSD wavelength modulation (wavelength versus time, with color indicating intensity).

Beam Smoothing for Picket-Pulse Fusion Experiments

How Spectral Dispersion and Timing Improve Irradiation Uniformity on OMEGA The OMEGA Laser System is designed to deliver laser energy as uniformly as possible to a spherical target using 60…

US IFE Conference Focuses a National Effort

More than 225 members of the US inertial fusion energy (IFE) community gathered in the Washington, DC, area on March 22–27 for the second annual US IFE Conference, formerly IFE-STAR.…

Group of all in-person OLUG attendees standing in the LLE East Lobby.

OLUG Hosts its 17th Annual Workshop

The 17th Omega Laser Facility Users Group (OLUG) Workshop, held April 28–30, 2026 at LLE, brought together approximately 150 participants from 32 institutions, including 70 students and postdocs. The annual…