NI highlights ‘Big Physics’ experiments

Fusion is a key topic of interest to the Big Physics community at National Instruments—or at least one can infer that from a spectacular photo essay included in the company’s latest newsletter. Of eight experiments cited, four focus on or can be used in fusion research:

• Joint European Torus (JET), Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), Oxfordshire, UK. JET is the largest experimental tokamak fusion reactor in the world.
• National Ignition Facility (NIF), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA. NIF is the largest inertial confinement fusion device in the world.
• Z Machine, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM. The Z Machine is the world’s largest X-ray generator and is used for experiments requiring high pulsed power and extreme temperatures and pressures, including inertial confinement fusion research.
• International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), ITER Organization, Cadarache, France. ITER is an international effort by the EU, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the U.S. to build the world’s largest experimental fusion tokamak.

The photo essay also highlights the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland; Borexino and DarkSide, Gran Sasso National Laboratory, Assergi, Italy (which conduct experiments in particle astrophysics), and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), European Southern Observatory (ESO), Cerro Armazones, Chile (the largest optical/near-infrared ground-based telescope, being built in northern Chile).