Reference Devices
National Ignition Facility
The laser facility that achieved target energy gain in 2022 by inertial confinement.
- Type
- Inertial confinement
- Milestone
- Target gain, 2022
The National Ignition Facility uses powerful lasers to compress fuel pellets, and in 2022 achieved fusion energy exceeding the laser energy delivered to the target — a landmark for inertial confinement.
It marks a different, pulsed route to fusion than Kronos's continuous magnetic approach.
Common questions
What is the National Ignition Facility?
NIF is the inertial-confinement facility that achieved target energy gain in 2022 by laser-compressing fuel pellets — a landmark, but a very different approach from Kronos's magnetic confinement.
Why does Kronos reference it?
As context for the field's progress and to distinguish its own continuous, magnetically-confined approach from pulsed inertial fusion.