Power conditioning in the national ignition facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a 192-beam inertial confinement fusion machine that has been fully operational since May 2009, with more limited operation as far back as 2002. The Power Conditioning System (PCS) supports the NIF mission by driving 7680 flashlamps that pump laser slabs in the main and power amplifiers of the infrared section of the laser. On a typical target shot PCS stores more than 325 MJ over the period of a minute before delivering the energy to the flashlamps. Peak current exceeds 100 MA and peak power exceeds 1 TW. PCS must operate reliably for hundreds of shots per year.