Model of target chamber

Deep inside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., sits the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The giant system sends 192 laser beams 1,500 meters from a master oscillator to a target chamber where the 192 beams are focused on a tiny fuel pellet. The idea? To demonstrate that laser fusion is possible--and a potential future source of clean energy.

In just 20 billionths of a second, the NIF's lasers deliver a payload of 500 trillion watts of power, more than 500 times the total amount of power created on the global power grid in the same amount of time.

This is a model of the target chamber that holds the actual fuel pellet target. The giant NIF system funnels the 192 laser beams into the chamber using a complex infrastructure of power amplifiers, mirrors, and more.

Read more in our related article: "Harnessing a star's power for clean energy"

June 4, 2010 4:00 AM PDT

Photo by: Daniel Terdiman/CNET

| Caption by: Daniel Terdiman