National Ignition Facility.

Major inertial-fusion and high-energy-density laser facilities operate in several countries, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and China. Among the most important are the National Ignition Facility (NIF), OMEGA and OMEGA EP, Laser Mégajoule (LMJ), ORION, LFEX and Shenguang III.

National Ignition Facility (NIF)

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, USA, is the world’s largest and most energetic laser facility. Its 192 laser beams can deliver up to about 2.2 MJ of ultraviolet energy to a millimetre-scale target, with a peak power of about 500 TW. The laser system occupies a ten-storey building covering an area roughly equivalent to three football fields.

From their origin to the target at the centre of the chamber, the laser beams travel about 1,500 metres in roughly 5 microseconds. NIF primarily uses indirect drive, in which the beams strike the inner walls of a hohlraum surrounding the fuel capsule. The heated walls convert much of the laser energy into X-rays that compress the capsule. Construction began in 1997, the facility was completed and dedicated in 2009, and full-scale experiments using all 192 beams followed in 2010. NIF typically performs several hundred experiments per year.

NIF achieved fusion ignition for the first time on 5 December 2022, producing 3.15 MJ of fusion energy from 2.05 MJ of laser energy delivered to the target. Since then, ignition has been repeated many times. In April 2025, NIF set a record by producing 8.6 MJ of fusion energy from 2.08 MJ of laser energy, corresponding to a target gain of 4.13. By June 2026, NIF had achieved ignition eleven times.

OMEGA

Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester.

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester, New York, operates the OMEGA and OMEGA EP laser systems. OMEGA, commissioned in 1995, is a 60-beam ultraviolet laser capable of delivering about 30 kJ at 30 TW to millimetre-scale targets. It is used extensively for direct-drive inertial-confinement fusion and high-energy-density physics and performs around 2,000 target shots each year.

OMEGA EP (Extended Performance), commissioned in 2008, is a neodymium-doped glass laser with four independently configurable high-energy beamlines. Two of these can be pulse-compressed to durations as short as about 1 picosecond, with energies of up to about 2.6 kJ, producing petawatt-class peak power. OMEGA EP can operate independently or together with OMEGA for fast-ignition, high-energy-density and advanced diagnostic experiments. On active experimental days, OMEGA EP can perform about 7—8 target shots per day.

Laser Mégajoule

The Laser Mégajoule (LMJ), located at the CEA CESTA centre near Bordeaux, France, is one of the world’s most energetic laser facilities. Its 176 beams can deliver more than 1 MJ of ultraviolet energy to a target, with a design peak power of about 400 TW. LMJ primarily uses indirect-drive configurations and is dedicated to high-energy-density physics and the French Simulation programme, while also supporting academic research in areas such as fusion, astrophysics and plasma physics.

LMJ entered service in 2014 and carried out its first fusion experiment in 2019. It is complemented by PETAL, a petawatt-class short-pulse laser used together with LMJ for high-energy-density and advanced radiography experiments; the first combined LMJ/PETAL experiments were performed in 2017. By December 2025, all planned LMJ laser chains had been installed.