Laser program at University of Rochester targeted for shutdown - Dave Kramer, Physics Today

The US Department of Energy intends to close a premier facility that has long led one of the three principal approaches to initiating nuclear fusion through the use of powerful lasers. DOE plans to initiate a “three-year rampdown” of the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) in the fiscal year that begins in October, according to a summary of the agency’s 2019 budget proposal released on 12 February. The LLE, which houses the 40-kilojoule Omega laser, is one of three major facilities supported by the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20180216b/full/