NCET Biz Tips: Research as Hot as The Sun Happens Right in Northern Nevada

Where can you see a zebra and a leopard that generate as much heat as the sun? Just a little north of Reno at the Zebra Pulsed Power Laboratory (ZPPL).

The University of Nevada, Reno, established The Nevada Terawatt Facility and dedicated it in 2000. Supported primarily by the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy, its mission was to conduct research and to train students in the field of high-energy-density science, the study of the behavior of matter subject to conditions of extreme temperature and density.

Today, the Nevada Terawatt Facility is known as the Zebra Pulsed Power Lab, and it’s where high-quality basic research in the area of high-energy-density physics happens. The research studies matter under extreme conditions of temperature and density. This rapidly developing field explores the fourth state of matter, called plasma, under conditions similar to those occurring in the interiors of stars, nuclear fusion reactors, and lightning bolts.

Special research equipment is needed to produce such extreme conditions in the laboratory: a Zebra and a Leopard.

The Zebra Pulsed-Power Generator uses a two terawatt, pulsed electrical discharge device to drive an electric pulse with a rise time of approximately 100 nano-seconds and current of one million amperes through a fine wire, array of wires, or a solid/gas-filled target. The Zebra creates a hot, dense plasma that graduate students and researchers can study.

To support and expand the Zebra’s research capabilities, the University’s Physics Department developed a 50-terawatt short-pulse laser on-site and named it Leopard. The Leopard laser can be used to create hot, dense plasmas on its own. Or, it can be coupled with the Zebra to probe the Zebra’s electrical discharge for diagnostic purposes or interrogate the Zebra-produced plasma with charged particles, a unique capability that exists nowhere else in the country.

Both the Zebra and Leopard are vital tools for students and researchers.

“We take very seriously graduate student training and preparing students for their professional careers,” said Paul Neill, the chair of the Physics Department. “With this facility, we can provide students with the opportunity to develop skills and techniques and abilities that are very valuable to the national labs.”

See the Zebra Pulsed Power Laboratory during NCET’s Tech Wednesday event from 5:30–7:30 p.m. on March 11. Tickets and more info at www.NCETwed.org

Dave Archer

Dave Archer is president/CEO of NCET, which produces educational and networking events to help people explore business and technology. (www.NCET.org)