Mission and Users of the National Ignition Facility
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is an operational multi-megajoule laser facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, CA. In March 2009, construction of NIF was completed and it began full operations. NIF was constructed by the Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to execute high energy density (HED) science experiments in support of the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), the DOE’s energy and fundamental science missions, the Department of Defense (DOD), and other federal offices and agencies. NIF is operated as a national and international user facility to support this range of missions and associated national laboratory, academic, and private-sector user communities.
Users of NIF include researchers from the NNSA and Office of Science national laboratories, other federal agencies, academia, the private sector, and the international scientific community. This user manual is intended to provide sufficient information to allow researchers to become familiar with NIF and develop preliminary plans for NIF experiments. It also provides references to further information to support detailed experiment planning.
Much of this information is also available on the NIF Users portion of the NIF website: