Michael Rosenberg

Michael Rosenberg received his Ph.D. from the Physics Department at MIT in 2014. He was the recipient of the Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award from the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics for his thesis entitled, “Studies of Ion Kinetic Effects in Shock-Driven Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosions at OMEGA and the NIF and Magnetic Reconnection Using Laser-Produced Plasmas at OMEGA.” Mike joined LLE as a Research Associate in 2015 and was promoted to Scientist and Staff Scientist in 2017 and 2021, respectively. During that time Mike was a co-leader of the MegaJoule Direct-Drive Campaign to study ignition-scale laser-direct-drive physics and polar-direct-drive (PDD) implosions at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Mike implemented experimental platforms and diagnostics on the NIF to study energy coupling, implosion symmetry, preheat, and laser imprint. Working with his collaborators, he demonstrated that stimulated Raman scattering is the dominant hot-electron preheat source in NIF direct-drive experiments and that the preheat levels could be reduced using silicon layers. Working with diagnostic teams at the NIF and Omega, Mike designed and deployed an array of scattered-light time-history diagnostics on the NIF to infer the laser absorption in PDD implosions.  Recently, Mike led a working group to field future wetted-foam implosion targets on OMEGA. Mike was a member of NNSA’s Red Team for the 2020 Review of the Ignition Approaches for Inertial Confinement Fusion. He is on the Executive Committee for the High-Temperature Plasma Diagnostics Conference, and he is a member of the HED Council Outputs and Survivability Working Group.