Energy · 2022

Fusion ignition (NIF)

A laser-driven capsule releases more fusion energy than the light that hit it.

On 5 December 2022 the National Ignition Facility's 192 lasers delivered 2.05 MJ to a fuel capsule and got 3.15 MJ of fusion energy back, the first scientific ignition. Later shots in 2025 raised the yield to about 8.6 MJ.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

What it led to 2

Watch

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieves fusion ignitionLawrence Livermore National Laboratory · YouTube How NIF WorksLawrence Livermore National Laboratory · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Record fusion triple product Latest: 1.73×10²² keV·s/m³ (2017) Source: Wurzel & Hsu 2022, Physics of Plasmas 29, 062103; Wurzel & Hsu 2025 update, Physics of Plasmas 32, 112106

Nuclear electricity generation Latest: 2.81k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data