Andrea Kritcher

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Andrea Kritcher
Annie Kritcher.jpg
Born
Andrea Lynn Kritcher
Alma mater University of Michigan
University of California, Berkeley
Scientific career
Institutions Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Thesis Ultrafast K-alpha Thomson scattering from shock compressed matter for use as a dense matter diagnostic  (2009)

Andrea Lynn "Annie" Kritcher is an American nuclear engineer and physicist who works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She was responsible for the development of Hybrid-E, a capsule that enables inertial confinement fusion. She was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2022.

Contents

Early life and education

Kritcher is a native of Traverse City, Michigan, and attended both Traverse City Central High School and Northwestern Michigan College before studying nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. [1] [2] [3] [4] She moved to the University of California, Berkeley for graduate studies, where she earned a master's degree and doctorate in nuclear engineering. She spent summer 2004 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on an internship. [5] Her first project involved analyzing data for the electron beam ion trap. [5] Her doctoral research considered Thomson scattering from shocked compressed matter. [6] She became a postdoctoral researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2009. [7] [8] Her postdoctoral research explored using X-rays to measure the properties of warm and hot dense matter (plasma), and measuring how nuclei interact with dense plasma. [5] [8] She made use of the LLNL Jupiter laser and the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester. [8]

Research and career

Kritcher was made a permanent member of staff in the Weapons and Complex Integration's Design Physics Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2009. [7]

Kritcher works in nuclear engineering, with a particular focus on inertial confinement fusion, [9] which looks to emulate the nuclear processes that take place in the sun by compressing and heating capsules full of thermonuclear fuel. [10] High energy beams (photons or electrons) bombard the outer layer of the capsule, which explodes outward and generates a reaction force that accelerates the remainder of the capsule toward the center. The explosion creates a shockwave that travels through the fuel target, resulting in sufficient heat and compression for the fusion to begin. These capsules contain heavy isotopes of hydrogen (typically deuterium and tritium). Kritcher designed Hybrid-E, a target capsule that includes a high density carbon capsule and a deuterium-tritium fill tube. [9] [11] The capsule is encased in a hohlraum that converts the incident laser light into x-rays. Kritcher said that it was challenging to design the hohlraum such that it generated a symmetric implosion of the capsule. [11] This involved confining the size of the entrance holes to enhance the energy that is coupled into the system, and a structure that can systematically adjust the wavelength of each beam to balance the X-ray energy required to drive the capsule to implode. [9] The Hybrid-E capsule enabled inertial confinement fusion able to produce more than a megajoule of fusion energy. [7] [12] [13] Hybrid-E represents the first time that it was possible to generate a burning plasma state that emits more energy than the energy required to initiate the fusion. [14]

In 2022, Kritcher was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. [7] Her citation read, “for leadership in integrated hohlraum design physics leading to the creation of the first laboratory burning and igniting fusion plasma.” [15]

Kritcher went on to study the behavior of ions in inertial confinement fusion, showing that the energy of neutrons produced from a deuterium–tritium plasma recorded experimentally was higher than could be predicted from the hydrodynamics-informed algorithms that simulate inertial confinement implosions. [16]

Kritcher was the designer of the December 5, 2022 experiment that achieved fusion breakeven at the National Ignition Facility. [17] [18]

Awards and honors

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inertial confinement fusion</span> Branch of fusion energy research

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a fusion energy process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by compressing and heating targets filled with fuel. The targets are small pellets, typically containing deuterium (2H) and tritium (3H).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fusion power</span> Electricity generation through nuclear fusion

Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2023, no device has reached net power.

This timeline of nuclear fusion is an incomplete chronological summary of significant events in the study and use of nuclear fusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Ignition Facility</span> American nuclear fusion facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, United States. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain. It achieved the first instance of scientific breakeven controlled fusion in an experiment on December 5, 2022, with an energy gain factor of 1.5. It supports nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear explosions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fusion energy gain factor</span> Ratio of energy in to out in a fusion power plant

A fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state. The condition of Q = 1, when the power being released by the fusion reactions is equal to the required heating power, is referred to as breakeven, or in some sources, scientific breakeven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shiva laser</span>

The Shiva laser was a powerful 20-beam infrared neodymium glass laser built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1977 for the study of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and long-scale-length laser-plasma interactions. Presumably, the device was named after the multi-armed form of the Hindu god Shiva, due to the laser's multi-beamed structure. Shiva was instrumental in demonstrating a particular problem in compressing targets with lasers, leading to a major new device being constructed to address these problems, the Nova laser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nova (laser)</span> High-power laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Nova was a high-power laser built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, United States, in 1984 which conducted advanced inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments until its dismantling in 1999. Nova was the first ICF experiment built with the intention of reaching "ignition", a chain reaction of nuclear fusion that releases a large amount of energy. Although Nova failed in this goal, the data it generated clearly defined the problem as being mostly a result of Rayleigh–Taylor instability, leading to the design of the National Ignition Facility, Nova's successor. Nova also generated considerable amounts of data on high-density matter physics, regardless of the lack of ignition, which is useful both in fusion power and nuclear weapons research.

In radiation thermodynamics, a hohlraum is a cavity whose walls are in radiative equilibrium with the radiant energy within the cavity. This idealized cavity can be approximated in practice by making a small perforation in the wall of a hollow container of any opaque material. The radiation escaping through such a perforation will be a good approximation to black-body radiation at the temperature of the interior of the container.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inertial fusion power plant</span>

Inertial Fusion Energy is a proposed approach to building a nuclear fusion power plant based on performing inertial confinement fusion at industrial scale. This approach to fusion power is still in a research phase. ICF first developed shortly after the development of the laser in 1960, but was a classified US research program during its earliest years. In 1972, John Nuckolls wrote a paper predicting that compressing a target could create conditions where fusion reactions are chained together, a process known as fusion ignition or a burning plasma. On August 8, 2021, the NIF at Livermore National Laboratory became the first ICF facility in the world to demonstrate this. This breakthrough drove the US Department of Energy to create an Inertial Fusion Energy program in 2022 with a budget of 3 million dollars in its first year.

Fusion ignition is the point at which a nuclear fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining. This occurs when the energy being given off by the reaction heats the fuel mass more rapidly than it cools. In other words, fusion ignition is the point at which the increasing self-heating of the nuclear fusion removes the need for external heating. This is quantified by the Lawson criterion. Ignition can also be defined by the fusion energy gain factor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnetized liner inertial fusion</span> Method of producing controlled nuclear fusion

Magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) is an emerging method of producing controlled nuclear fusion. It is part of the broad category of inertial fusion energy (IFE) systems, which drives the inward movement of fusion fuel, thereby compressing it to reach densities and temperatures where fusion reactions occur. Previous IFE experiments used laser drivers to reach these conditions, whereas MagLIF uses a combination of lasers for heating and Z-pinch for compression. A variety of theoretical considerations suggest such a system will reach the required conditions for fusion with a machine of significantly less complexity than the pure-laser approach. There are currently at least two facilities testing feasibility of the MagLIF concept, the Z-machine at Sandia Labs in the US and Primary Test Stand (PTS) located in Mianyang, China.

LASNEX is a computer program that simulates the interactions between x-rays and a plasma, along with many effects associated with these interactions. The program is used to predict the performance of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) devices such as the Nova laser or proposed particle beam "drivers". Versions of LASNEX have been used since the late 1960s or early 1970s, and the program has been constantly updated. LASNEX's existence was mentioned in John Nuckolls' seminal paper in Nature in 1972 that first widely introduced the ICF concept, saying it was "...like breaking an enemy code. It tells you how many divisions to bring to bear on a problem."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laser Inertial Fusion Energy</span> Early 2010s fusion energy effort

LIFE, short for Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, was a fusion energy effort run at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory between 2008 and 2013. LIFE aimed to develop the technologies necessary to convert the laser-driven inertial confinement fusion concept being developed in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) into a practical commercial power plant, a concept known generally as inertial fusion energy (IFE). LIFE used the same basic concepts as NIF, but aimed to lower costs using mass-produced fuel elements, simplified maintenance, and diode lasers with higher electrical efficiency.

John Hopkin Nuckolls is an American physicist who worked his entire career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is best known for the development of inertial confinement fusion, which is a major branch of fusion power research to this day. He was also the lab's director from 1988 until 1994, when he resigned to become an associate director at large. He was awarded the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1969, the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics in 1981 and the Edward Teller Award in 1991.

John D. Lindl is an American physicist who specializes in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). He is currently the chief scientist of the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Heavy ion fusion is a fusion energy concept that uses a stream of high-energy ions from a particle accelerator to rapidly heat and compress a small pellet of fusion fuel. It is a subclass of the larger inertial confinement fusion (ICF) approach, replacing the more typical laser systems with an accelerator.

The history of nuclear fusion began early in the 20th century as an inquiry into how stars powered themselves and expanded to incorporate a broad inquiry into the nature of matter and energy, as potential applications expanded to include warfare, energy production and rocket propulsion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tammy Ma</span> American physicist

Tammy Ma is an American plasma physicist who works on inertial confinement fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Denise Hinkel is a plasma physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Gatu Johnson</span> Swedish-American plasma physicist

Maria Gatu Johnson is a Swedish-American plasma physicist whose research involves the use of neutron spectrometry to study inertial confinement fusion and stellar nucleosynthesis. She works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a principal research scientist in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

References

  1. ↑ "TC Native Named One of TIME's 100 Most Influential People". The Ticker | Traverse City News & Events. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
  2. ↑ "June : 2022 Outstanding Alumni named : Northwestern Michigan College". www.nmc.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
  3. ↑ "Alumni Notes". issuu. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  4. ↑ "Day of the starmakers". Founding Fuel. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  5. 1 2 3 "Fusion of interests gives postdoc career focus". www.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  6. ↑ "Ultrafast K-[alpha] Thomson scattering from shock compressed matter for use as a dense matter diagnostic | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Two LLNL scientists selected as 2022 APS fellows". www.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  8. 1 2 3 Nikolic, Rebecca J. (2011-05-23). "Science and Technology Review June 2011". doi:10.2172/1122235. OSTI   1122235.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. 1 2 3 "Beaming with Excellence". str.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  10. ↑ "Annie Kritcher leads revolutionary nuclear fusion experiment". ners.engin.umich.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  11. 1 2 "High-Laser-Energy Shot Puts NIF Back on Track Toward Ignition". lasers.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  12. ↑ Kritcher, A. L.; et al. (2021). "Achieving record hot spot energies with large HDC implosions on NIF in HYBRID-E". Physics of Plasmas. 28 (7): 072706. doi:10.1063/5.0047841. OSTI   1818404. S2CID   237731121.
  13. ↑ Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator (2020-08-16). "1.1 Million Joules of UV Laser Energy: Shedding Light on Stellar Evolution and "Cosmic Clocks"". SciTechDaily. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  14. ↑ Behr, Peter (2022-01-27). "DOE lab achieves key milestone for fusion energy". E&E News. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  15. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  16. ↑ "LLNL researchers observe that ions behave differently in fusion reactions". www.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  17. ↑ Carolyn Yu (December 15, 2022). "National Ignition Facility achieves nuclear energy breakthrough". Daily Cal.
  18. ↑ "A shot for the ages: Fusion ignition breakthrough hailed as 'one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century'". Official website. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. December 14, 2022.
  19. ↑ "Physics World announces its finalists for the 2021 Breakthrough of the Year". Physics World. 2021-12-07. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  20. ↑ "NMC Names Its Outstanding Alumni Award Winners". The Ticker | Traverse City News & Events. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  21. ↑ "Andrea Kritcher | Falling Walls". falling-walls.com. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
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