This week, LLNL scientists announced they have performed the first-ever controlled fusion reaction to produce more energy than it took to create. As reported by the U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday, the team used an array of powerful lasers to blast a peppercorn-sized capsule containing hydrogen isotopes with just over two million joules of energy, fusing them into helium and producing more than three million joules as a result.
Among the many scientists and engineers who contributed to this recent breakthrough are two faculty members from the Texas A&M University College of Engineering. Satish T.S. Bukkapatnam and Yu Ding, professors in the Wm Michael Barnes ’64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, have been working with the Lawrence Livermore Lab’s National Ignition Facility, where the test was performed, since the spring of 2019.
