Andrea Kritcher

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Andrea Kritcher
Born
Andrea Lynn Kritcher
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
University of California, Berkeley
Scientific career
InstitutionsLawrence Livermore National Laboratory
ThesisUltrafast K-alpha Thomson scattering from shock compressed matter for use as a dense matter diagnostic (2009)

Andrea Lynn "Annie" Kritcher is an American nuclear engineer and physicist who works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She was responsible for the development of Hybrid-E, a capsule that enables inertial confinement fusion. She was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2022.

Early life and education[edit]

Kritcher is a native of Traverse City, Michigan, and attended both Traverse City Central High School and Northwestern Michigan College before studying nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan.[1][2][3][4] She moved to the University of California, Berkeley for graduate studies, where she earned a master's degree and doctorate in nuclear engineering. She spent summer 2004 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on an internship.[5] Her first project involved analyzing data for the electron beam ion trap.[5] Her doctoral research considered Thomson scattering from shocked compressed matter.[6] She became a postdoctoral researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2009.[7][8] Her postdoctoral research explored using X-rays to measure the properties of warm and hot dense matter (plasma), and measuring how nuclei interact with dense plasma.[5][8] She made use of the LLNL Jupiter laser and the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester.[8]

Research and career[edit]

Kritcher was made a permanent member of staff in the Weapons and Complex Integration's Design Physics Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2009.[7]

Kritcher works in nuclear engineering, with a particular focus on inertial confinement fusion,[9] which looks to emulate the nuclear processes that take place in the sun by compressing and heating capsules full of thermonuclear fuel.[10] High energy beams (photons or electrons) bombard the outer layer of the capsule, which explodes outward and generates a reaction force that accelerates the remainder of the capsule toward the center. The explosion creates a shockwave that travels through the fuel target, resulting in sufficient heat and compression for the fusion to begin. These capsules contain heavy isotopes of hydrogen (typically deuterium and tritium). Kritcher designed Hybrid-E, a target capsule that includes a high density carbon capsule and a deuterium-tritium fill tube.[9][11] The capsule is encased in a hohlraum that converts the incident laser light into x-rays. Kritcher said that it was challenging to design the hohlraum such that it generated a symmetric implosion of the capsule.[11] This involved confining the size of the entrance holes to enhance the energy that is coupled into the system, and a structure that can systematically adjust the wavelength of each beam to balance the X-ray energy required to drive the capsule to implode.[9] The Hybrid-E capsule enabled inertial confinement fusion able to produce more than a megajoule of fusion energy.[7][12][13] Hybrid-E represents the first time that it was possible to generate a burning plasma state that emits more energy than the energy required to initiate the fusion.[14]

In 2022, Kritcher was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.[7] Her citation read, “for leadership in integrated hohlraum design physics leading to the creation of the first laboratory burning and igniting fusion plasma.”[15]

Kritcher went on to study the behavior of ions in inertial confinement fusion, showing that the energy of neutrons produced from a deuterium–tritium plasma recorded experimentally was higher than could be predicted from the hydrodynamics-informed algorithms that simulate inertial confinement implosions.[16]

Kritcher was the designer of the December 5, 2022 experiment that achieved fusion breakeven at the National Ignition Facility.[17][18]

Awards and honors[edit]

Selected publications[edit]

  • Andrea L Kritcher; Paul Neumayer; John Castor; et al. (1 October 2008). "Ultrafast x-ray Thomson scattering of shock-compressed matter". Science. 322 (5898): 69–71. Bibcode:2008Sci...322...69K. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.1161466. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 18832640. Wikidata Q33373628.
  • Lee HJ; Neumayer P; Castor J; et al. (16 March 2009). "X-ray Thomson-scattering measurements of density and temperature in shock-compressed beryllium". Physical Review Letters. 102 (11): 115001. doi:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.102.115001. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 19392206. Wikidata Q83725949.
  • John Lindl; Otto Landen; John Edwards; Ed Moses; NIC Team (February 2014). "Review of the National Ignition Campaign 2009-2012". Physics of Plasmas. 21 (2): 020501. Bibcode:2014PhPl...21b0501L. doi:10.1063/1.4865400. ISSN 1070-664X. Wikidata Q60118110. (erratum)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "TC Native Named One of TIME's 100 Most Influential People". The Ticker | Traverse City News & Events. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
  2. ^ "June : 2022 Outstanding Alumni named : Northwestern Michigan College". www.nmc.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
  3. ^ "Alumni Notes". issuu. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  4. ^ "Day of the starmakers". Founding Fuel. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  5. ^ a b c "Fusion of interests gives postdoc career focus". www.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  6. ^ "Ultrafast K-[alpha] Thomson scattering from shock compressed matter for use as a dense matter diagnostic | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  7. ^ a b c d e "Two LLNL scientists selected as 2022 APS fellows". www.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  8. ^ a b c Nikolic, Rebecca J. (2011-05-23). "Science and Technology Review June 2011". doi:10.2172/1122235. OSTI 1122235. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ a b c "Beaming with Excellence". str.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  10. ^ "Annie Kritcher leads revolutionary nuclear fusion experiment". ners.engin.umich.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  11. ^ a b "High-Laser-Energy Shot Puts NIF Back on Track Toward Ignition". lasers.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  12. ^ Kritcher, A. L.; et al. (2021). "Achieving record hot spot energies with large HDC implosions on NIF in HYBRID-E". Physics of Plasmas. 28 (7): 072706. doi:10.1063/5.0047841. OSTI 1818404. S2CID 237731121.
  13. ^ Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator (2020-08-16). "1.1 Million Joules of UV Laser Energy: Shedding Light on Stellar Evolution and "Cosmic Clocks"". SciTechDaily. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  14. ^ Behr, Peter (2022-01-27). "DOE lab achieves key milestone for fusion energy". E&E News. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  15. ^ "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  16. ^ "LLNL researchers observe that ions behave differently in fusion reactions". www.llnl.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  17. ^ Carolyn Yu (December 15, 2022). "National Ignition Facility achieves nuclear energy breakthrough". Daily Cal.
  18. ^ "A shot for the ages: Fusion ignition breakthrough hailed as 'one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century'". Official website. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. December 14, 2022.
  19. ^ "Physics World announces its finalists for the 2021 Breakthrough of the Year". Physics World. 2021-12-07. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  20. ^ "NMC Names Its Outstanding Alumni Award Winners". The Ticker | Traverse City News & Events. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  21. ^ "Andrea Kritcher | Falling Walls". falling-walls.com. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
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