Tammy Ma Experimental Physicist

Tammy Ma’s job involves firing lots of powerful lasers: 192 of them to be exact. She works at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), home to the world’s largest and most energetic laser system. Three football fields could fit inside the building. One of the original goals of the giant facility was to harness fusion energy.

- Kathryn Hulick

In a fusion experiment, Ma and her team place a capsule of fuel in the middle of a target chamber. All 192 lasers fire onto the capsule, causing intense pressure and a temperature hotter than the center of the sun. Under these conditions, some atoms inside the capsule join together, releasing a burst of fusion energy. To make that energy useful, though, the capsule must release more energy than it takes to fire the lasers. This is called ignition.

BEFORE NIF WAS BUILT, THE TEAM PREDICTED THAT YOU’D REACH IGNITION BY 2012. BUT THAT DATE CAME AND WENT WITHOUT REACHING THE GOAL. DO YOU THINK YOU’LL EVER GET THERE?

I undoubtedly think so! When you take on a huge scientific challenge like this, you do the best you can with the knowledge you have at that point and the technology you have at that time. We made the best projections we could.

RIGHT, NO ONE HAD EVER BUILT A LASER SYSTEM THAT BIG BEFORE, SO IT WAS HARD TO KNOW WHETHER IT WOULD WORK LIKE COMPUTER SIMULATIONS PREDICTED.