Precision keynotes design of laser facility. (News & Trends).

The ultimate purpose of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is to focus 192 laser beams, with an accuracy a fraction of the width of a human hair, on a target the size of an aspirin.

This daunting challenge suggests the degree of precision that was necessary to design and construct the $2.4 billion facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. The NIF will perform fusion energy experiments by compressing and heating fusion fuel capsules in order to produce thermonuclear ignitions with a peak power of 500 trillio