R&D Magazine: NIF achieves record ramp-compression pressures
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) recently achieved record-compression pressures using lasers, as detailed in this R&D Magazine. This is important to fusion research, specifically inertial confinement, which also uses lasers to fuse atoms.
In the first university-based planetary science experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), researchers have gradually compressed a diamond sample to a record pressure of 50 Mbar (50 million times Earth’s atmospheric pressure).
By replicating the conditions believed to exist in the cores of several recently discovered “super-Earths”—extra-solar planets three to 20 times more massive than Earth—the experiments could provide clues to the formation and structure of these and other giant planets, as well as the exotic behavior of materials at ultrahigh densities.
Read the rest of the article here.
