Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Andrea “Annie” Kritcher has been named to Time magazine’s TIME100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Kritcher, a design physicist, was recognized for being the principal designer for the December 2022 National Ignition Facility experiment that produced nuclear fusion ignition in a laboratory for the first time.
Scientists fired 192 lasers at a target the size of a pencil eraser in the NIF experiment, achieving “energy breakeven,” which means it produced more energy than was used in the effort.
The first-of-its-kind breakthrough is considered a major step toward a net-zero carbon economy.
The laboratory said in a statement the breakthrough “paves the way for advancements in national defense and the future of inertial fusion energy.”
Kritcher leads the integrated modeling team within LLNL’s Inertial Confinement Fusion program and oversees the integrated modeling of indirect-drive fusion designs fielded at NIF.
Kritcher said in a statement the process was a team effort, involving decades of developing models using experimental data and making design improvements to the fusion experiments.
“Reaching ignition was truly a large effort carried through many decades,” Kritcher said. “I am extremely honored to be representing the laboratory and the many people who have worked on this grand scientific challenge to make this a reality, some of whom were working on this before I was born.”
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Dirk van Ulden said:
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