The Nevada Terawatt Facility

The Nevada Terawatt Facility (NTF) at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) has been a division of the UNR Department of Physics since its inception in 1999. It is one of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA's) Science Centers supported by the Stockpile Stewardship Academic Alliances (SSAA) program.

The strengths of the Nevada Terawatt Facility consist of its unique experimental capabilities matched by outstanding theoretical and modeling support.

The Zebra pulsed power generator, the Leopard laser, and the extensive diagnostics set represents NTF's experimental capabilities. Crucial to the facility is the massive SAGE (previously military: Semi Automatic Ground Environment) building furnished by UNR which is well suited to house sensitive diagnostics alongside heavy, vibrating equipment. Also located within the building are the Phoenix interaction chamber, target fabrication facilities, a machine shop, the NTF 84-node and 48-node computer clusters, and a number of other capabilities.

High-energy-density physics, the study of matter under extreme conditions of temperature and density is the focus of research at the Nevada Terawatt Facility. Presently, the NTF includes scientific tools and machines for investigation of high temperature dense plasmas. The NTF staff provides reliable operation of 1-MA Zebra generator with ~400 shots per year, which are used, for z-pinch studies, generation of Terawatt x-ray bursts, Megagauss magnetic fields, and investigation of magnetized laser plasmas. Plasma diagnostics include a unique set of multiframe laser probing, optical and x-ray imaging, particle diagnostics, and x-ray spectroscopy supported by a world recognized atomic physics group in the UNR Department of Physics. Promising new wire array loads for ICF applications were developed at the NTF. The NTF experimental and theoretical efforts support the understanding of implosion dynamics, instabilities, plasma turbulence, x-ray production in z-pinches, and laser plasma interaction in both unmagnetized and magnetized plasmas. This work also includes space and astrophysical plasmas. All experiments are conducted with active and wide participation of UNR students