Stephanie Brooke Hansen is an American plasma physicist whose research applies both computational modeling and spectroscopy to inertial confinement fusion. She is a distinguished member of the technical staff in the inertial confinement fusion target design group at Sandia National Laboratories. [1]
Hansen earned a bachelor of arts in philosophy, and a bachelor of science in physics, at the University of Nevada, Reno, [2] graduating in 1999. As an undergraduate, she did directed research with Alla Safronova (Shlyaptseva), and she continued at Reno for doctoral research with Safronova, [3] completing her Ph.D. in 2003 with the dissertation Development and application of L-shell spectroscopic modeling for plasma diagnostics. [4]
She was a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2003 to 2008, when she moved to her present position at Sandia National Laboratories. [5]
Hansen was a 2017 winner of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. [6] In 2019, she was named as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), after a nomination from the APS Division of Plasma Physics, "for contributions to the fundamental modeling of nonequilibrium atoms and radiation in extreme environments, and for the advancement of spectroscopic analysis to increase understanding of diverse laboratory and astrophysical plasmas". [7]
The Z Pulsed Power Facility, informally known as the Z machine or Z, is the largest high frequency electromagnetic wave generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It was originally called the PBFA-II and was created in 1985. Since its refurbishment in October 1996 it has been used primarily as an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research facility. Operated by Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it gathers data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons and eventual fusion pulsed power plants.
A linear transformer driver (LTD) within physics and energy, is an annular parallel connection of switches and capacitors. The driver is designed to deliver rapid high power pulses. The LTD was invented at the Institute of High Current Electronics (IHCE) in Tomsk, Russia. The LTD is capable of producing high current pulses, up to 1 mega amps (106 ampere), with a risetime of less than 100 ns. This is an improvement over Marx generator based pulsed power devices which require pulse compression to achieve such fast risetimes. It is being considered as a driver for z-pinch based inertial confinement fusion.
Francis F. Chen is a Chinese-born American plasma physicist.
Benjamin Lax was a solid-state and plasma physicist.
Thomas W. L. "Tom" Sanford is an American plasma physicist who developed a multi-wire array for use in a pulsed Z-pinch plasma system which resulted in a breakthrough for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. In 2005, he was awarded the Hannes Alfvén Prize with Malcolm Haines and Valentin Smirnov for his contributions to the field.
Mary Ann Sweeney is an American physicist at Sandia National Laboratories. Although her doctoral research concerned astronomy, her work at Sandia has largely concerned inertial confinement fusion and pulsed power.
Christine Anne Coverdale is an American plasma physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, where she is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff.
Christine Garban-Labaune is a French plasma physicist known for her research in inertial confinement fusion.
Arian Leigh Pregenzer is an American physicist specializing in nuclear security, arms control, and nuclear proliferation. She is retired from the Sandia National Laboratories.
Tammy Ma is an American plasma physicist who works on inertial confinement fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Sharon Gail Glendinning is an American experimental physicist.
Cynthia Elizabeth Kieras Phillips was an American physicist known for her work on plasma, and on the use of radio waves to heat plasma for applications in magnetic confinement fusion.
Denise Hinkel is a plasma physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Carolyn C. Kuranz is an American plasma physicist whose research involves the use of high-powered lasers at the National Ignition Facility both to help develop inertial confinement fusion and to study how matter behaves in conditions similar to those in shock waves in astrophysics. She is an associate professor at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences.
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.
Mary Yvonne Pottenger Hockaday is an American physicist who works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014 and the American Physical Society in 2022.
Leanne Carolyn Pitchford is a retired physicist known for her work on the numerical modeling of low-temperature plasma, and in the LXCat project for open exchange of low-temperature plasma data. Educated in the US, she worked in France as a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), affiliated with the Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d’Energie (Laplace) at the University of Toulouse.
David A. Hammer is the J. Carlton Ward, Jr. Professor of Nuclear Energy Engineering, in the Cornell University College of Engineering. In 2004, Hammer received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Plasma Science and Applications Committee Award, as well as the Distinguished Career Award from Fusion Power Associates in 2018.
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.