A New Way to View Shockwaves Could Boost Fusion Research

At the heart of our sun, fusion is unfolding. As hydrogen atoms merge to form helium, they emit energy, producing the heat and light that reach us here on Earth. Inspired by our nearby star, researchers want to create fusion closer to home. If they can crack the engineering challenges underlying the process, they would create an abundant new source of power to eclipse all others.

One of those challenges is understanding what happens at the smallest scales during fusion reactions so that researchers can better control the process. In one of the two main kinds of fusion, inertial confinement fusion (ICF), researchers bombard a fuel-filled capsule with lasers to create shockwaves and heat and compress the target, kicking off fusion. That means lots of complex interactions that scientists haven’t been able to get a good look at — until now.

A team of researchers used a new approach at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to watch how a shockwave moved through water in extreme detail, making a never-before-seen movie of how the material compressed and how the electric and magnetic fields evolved. They were intrigued to discover that water provided a good analog for what happens when a laser strikes an ICF target. Scientists captured the process using both X-rays and an electron beam, a unique dual view known as “multi-messenger” imaging.

It’s the first time the multi-messenger technique has been used to study the physics underlying fusion, and opens the door for future small- and mid-scale experiments that will improve our models and help design better fusion systems.

The research was led by the University of Michigan through DOE’s LaserNetUS (which provides access to high-power laser facilities across the United States), with collaborators from Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division and four other institutions. The study was published Dec. 16, 2025, in the journal Nature Communications.

“It was a challenging experiment, but with very fruitful results,” said Hai-En Tsai, a research scientist in ATAP. Tsai and the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center team led the design, construction, and operation of the laser and beam sources for the experiment. “We watched the interaction in picosecond [one trillionth of a second] steps, frame by frame, with micrometer imaging precision. These are unprecedented precision levels in inertial fusion energy, where scientists and engineers have a lot of questions. These results can actually help verify the simulation models used for ICF.”