IFE-COLoR
Inertial Fusion Energy-Consortium on LPI Research
The Inertial Fusion Energy-Consortium on LPI Research (IFE-COLoR) is a Hub for broadband laser-plasma interaction (LPI) science focused on inertial fusion energy (IFE) that brings together experts from the University of Rochester, University of California at Los Angeles, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the private sector (Ergodic, LLC, and Xcimer Energy, Inc.). The Hub is leveraging expertise and capabilities across the Team’s institutions to advance the foundation of IFE science and technology. IFE will require efficient energy coupling to capsules and robust fusion performance. Robust implosions are enabled by coupling more energy to the capsule, so efficiency is essential to creating a path to economic IFE solutions. Laser-plasma instabilities are the primary obstacle for coupling efficiency. The future of IFE laser drivers is thus bandwidth and the revolution in short-pulse lasers has provided the solid-state technologies to make this a reality as a parallel path to excimer lasers. One of the primary goals of this Hub is to explore and identify in experiment and simulations the most effective utilization for bandwidth to mitigate laser-plasma instabilities.
The Hub will couple state-of-the-art laser technologies with advanced laser-plasma instability modeling and experiments guided by experimentally tested hydrodynamic simulations to provide the scientific and technological underpinning for a high-bandwidth direct-drive IFE system.
LLE Undergraduate Education Program Opportunities
The IFE-COLoR award will also provide additional support for our LLE Undergraduate Education Program, enabling students to engage in mission-critical science and engineering. The unique research, workforce, and career-building opportunities the LLE has to offer undergraduates are well suited to provide training, while helping to fill the critical future workforce needs of our sponsors at all levels, including scientists, engineers, operators, and technicians. Undergraduate students pursuing degree programs in related science and engineering fields are welcome to apply! For more information and application instructions, please visit the Undergraduate Education Program.
In the News
IFE at LLE Featured on NEWs 10NBC
Rochester’s News10NBC visited LLE and produced a news story that helps show the community the mission, goals, and science behind the work that is done at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Shown here is LLE Plasma & Ultrafast Laser Science & Engineering Division Director, Dustin Froula, speaking with News10NBC Investigative Journalist, Jennifer Lewke. The video can be seen here.
$10 Million in Funding Secured for New Inertial Fusion Energy Consortium
The Hub IFE-COLoR (Inertial Fusion Energy-Consortium on LPI Research) has received $10 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Science to advance research on inertial fusion energy science (IFE) and technology. Led by the University of Rochester, the Hub brings together a first-class lineup of experts from the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the private sector (Ergodic, LLC and Xcimer Energy, Inc.) to build the scientific case that will determine a technologically viable path to IFE. Research will directly address the most significant science issues that currently pose challenges to the development of an IFE facility by setting the requirements for a direct-drive high-bandwidth laser driver that significantly reduces laser imprint and mitigates laser-plasma instabilities at IFE conditions.
The Hub will couple state-of-the-art laser technologies with advanced laser–plasma instability modeling and experiments guided by experimentally tested hydrodynamic simulations. “This is a tremendous opportunity for the University of Rochester and for scientists and students involved in inertial fusion,” says Dustin Froula, Director of the Plasma & Ultrafast Laser Science & Engineering Division at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The Hub will play a critical role in helping to steward the IFE ecosystem and diversifying the inertial fusion workforce through educational outreach at all levels. In particular, funding from this proposal will support an annual ten-week-long IFE Summer Undergraduate Research Program at LLE for 15 students each year to expand the pipeline of talented people into careers in IFE research.
Read more in the NY Times, the Department of Energy, and the University of Rochester.
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