ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Nuclear materials testing project brings U.S. and U.K. expertise together
As nations look to nuclear energy as a source of reliable electricity and heat, researchers and industry are developing a new generation of nuclear reactors to fill the need. These advanced nuclear reactors will provide safe, efficient, and economical power that go beyond what the current large light water reactors can do.
But before large-scale deployment of advanced reactors, researchers need to understand and test the safety and performance of the technologies—especially the coolants and materials—that make them possible.
Now, the United States and the United Kingdom have teamed up to test hundreds of advanced nuclear materials.
J. D. Zuegel, S. Borneis, C. Barty, B. Legarrec, C. Danson, N. Miyanaga, P. K. Rambo, C. Leblanc, T. J. Kessler, A. W. Schmid, L. J. Waxer, J. H. Kelly, B. Kruschwitz, R. Jungquist, E. Moses, J. Britten, I. Jovanovic, J. Dawson, N. Blanchot
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 3 | April 2006 | Pages 453-482
Technical Paper | Fast Ignition | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1161
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The laser challenges and state of the art in high-energy, solid-state petawatt lasers for fast ignition (FI) research are reviewed. A number of new laser systems are currently under construction or being planned that will facilitate proof-of-principle FI experiments. Recent technological advances in each of the major ultrafast laser subsystems are reported, including chirped-pulse generation and broadband amplification in the front end, high-energy amplification, and pulse compression with adaptive wavefront correction. Unique challenges related to operating high-energy chirped-pulse-amplification laser systems for FI, such as protection from target back reflections, are also addressed.