Fusion Power Associates honor NIF target innovator Abbas Nikroo

Newswise — Abbas Nikroo, deputy director for physics integration at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory‘s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF), received the 2025 Distinguished Career Award by Fusion Power Associates (FPA).

The FPA board of directors honored Nikroo for his “outstanding decades of unwavering commitment and leadership in scientific and management of the development and reliable production of ultra-precision components and targets to enable ignition on NIF.”

This is Nikroo’s second FPA award. In 2003, he received the FPA Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award for “his outstanding technical contributions to the technology of inertial fusion energy and his exceptional leadership in the fusion field.” LLNL physicist Annie Kritcher won this award in 2024.

“I’m honored to receive this award,” he said. “It’s very rewarding to be recognized by FPA again after receiving an early career award over 20 years ago. This puts my whole career in perspective, from learning how to make effective targets in the early years at General Atomics to the breakthroughs while at LLNL in capsule quality that led to the first ignition achievement in 2022.”

Nikroo’s leadership in target fabrication contributed to achieving ignition in December 2022. His team boosted efficiency to keep up with higher shot rate at NIF, enabled the physics program’s understanding of impediments to better implosions through innovative targets, and finally improved capsule quality to reduce fuel mix and help enable ignition.

But target fabrication was not on his radar when he first entered science. He began working in the field in 1993, when NIF was in its planning stages.

As an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, Nikroo studied applied mathematics and physics, envisioning a career as a professor. He began a Ph.D. in quantum field theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara, but he switched to experimental physics. As a graduate student, he worked on a thin film coatings project and metrology equipment, a pivot that put him on a trajectory for target fabrication.

Those skills proved decisive. After graduate school, they helped him land a job with a General Atomics (GA) group that was building targets. He initially saw the role as something to try out but quickly found the work compelling. It was a change from traditional research and development, with concrete deliverables and collaboration with LLNL and other national laboratories.

Target fabrication stands among the Seven Wonders of NIF, the technological achievements that made the one-of-a-kind facility possible. These targets face extreme temperatures and pressures, so they require flawless design, fabrication, assembly and materials. It’s about a six to nine-month process from start to finish. Germany’s Diamond Materials fabricates the fuel capsules, which are then sent to GA for characterization and component manufacturing, finally arriving at LLNL for final assembly and fuel fill.

“I’m happy with the path I’ve taken. It has allowed me to do physics, engineering, materials science, chemistry and so on. I’ve become jack of all trades and master of some,” Nikroo said.

He also took on an unusual additional role: courier. For 20 years, Nikroo hand-carried fuel capsule fill tube assemblies (CFTA) from GA in San Diego to LLNL every week. He would pack the bubble-wrapped capsule case into a special foam-lined suitcase with an accelerometer to measure the vibrational load of the journey.

Minimizing those vibrations became part of the job. Flying was better than driving. He could not roll the suitcase; he had to carry it flat through the airport. Even security required strategy: sending the case through the conveyor belt was preferable to opening and closing the suitcase.

“It was nerve-wracking, but I had a 98% success rate in transporting capsules,” he said. “To be honest, I’m happy I’m not doing that anymore.”

While Nikroo enjoyed working in the lab, he moved into management to have a stronger hand in shaping the scientific direction of target fabrication. In 2015, as NIF’s shot rate ramped up, he transitioned from GA and joined LLNL while continuing to live in Southern California and commuting weekly to LLNL, making regular trips to GA to continue the collaboration and also pick up CFTAs.

“The goal was to bring efficiencies to production work at LLNL and improve target quality at the same time without breaking the bank. We began making more innovative targets that allowed us to separate problems like fuel mix, hydrodynamic instabilities and asymmetry,” he said.

That set off an intense period of analysis and experimentation in target fabrication, the results of which were a key factor in the achievement of ignition. This included traveling to Germany to work directly with Diamond Materials to solve issues with capsule quality.

In 2022, Nikroo took on a new challenge as NIF deputy director for physics integration. His long-time deputy Michael Stadermann stepped into the role of Target Fabrication Program Manager.

“It was a relief to turn things over to Michael,” he said. “As the target fabrication manager, you worry about the next target every single day.”

Nikroo also led development of a plutonium target fabrication capability inside LLNL’s  “Superblock” plutonium research and development facility, enabling the development of  targets for equation-of-state experiments.

“Target fabrication is already extremely challenging. With plutonium targets, you add the complexity of working in a glovebox with absolute precision,” he said. “It was a 10-year project to bring this capability online.”

Today, Nikroo describes his role at NIF as a bridge linking scientists and engineers. He has restarted his work with Superblock as that facility ramps up for enhanced utilization for the Strategic Deterrence mission and provides the tritium used in NIF ignition experiments.

“We’re applying some of the lessons from target fabrication to Superblock,” he says. “At NIF in many ways, I serve as a translator between physics and engineering. Essentially, that’s what target fabrication is — engineering a way to perform seemingly impossible physics experiments.”

The FPA Distinguished Career Awards have been given annually since 1987 to recognize individuals who have made distinguished lifelong career contributions to fusion energy development. FPA Leadership Awards have been given annually since 1980 to recognize individuals who have shown outstanding leadership qualities in accelerating the development of fusion as a commercial power source. In 2024, NIF Operations Manager Bruno Van Wonterghem won this award. See a list of previous recipients.