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A new study supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation shows, for the first time, how heat moves — or rather, doesn’t — between materials in a high-energy-density plasma state. The work is expected to provide a better understanding of inertial confinement fusion experiments, which aim to reliably achieve fusion ignition on Earth using lasers. How heat flows between a hot plasma and a material’s surface is also important in other technologies, including semiconductor etching and vehicles that fly at hypersonic speeds.
High-energy-density plasmas are produced only at extreme pressures and temperatures. The study shows that interfacial thermal resistance, a phenomenon known to impede heat transfer in less extreme conditions, also prevents heat flow between different materials in a dense, super-hot plasma state. The research is published in Nature Communications and was led by Thomas White, a physicist at the University of Nevada, Reno, and his former doctoral student, Cameron Allen. White is a recipient of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development grant.
“Understanding how energy flows across a boundary is a fundamental question, and this work provides us with new insights into how this happens in the exceptionally energy-dense environments that one finds inside of stars and planetary cores,” says Jeremiah Williams, a program director for the NSF Plasma Physics program.
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Imagine what life would be like without GPS, something you use all the time without thinking about where it came from. NIST research helped bring you GPS and many other important technologies.
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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL) proudly participated in the 32nd Annual NIST Sigma Xi Early-Career Poster Presentation, a longstanding tradition that highlights groundbreaking
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The 2025 MBE Summit was hosted at MxD headquarters in Chicago, IL, April 15 – 18. NIST’s Rosemary Astheimer organized technical content in conjunction with the Digital Metrology Standards Consortium. The event emphasized the exchange of data
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