Star power: California's National Ignition Facility fires up

Inside the National Ignition Facility (NIF) target chamber. The giant facility, housed in an oversized warehouse in California, will harness the power of lasers to turn tiny pellets of hydrogen into thermonuclear energy. The facility will gradually work up to full power over the next 12 months or so, but experiments are scheduled to run until around 2040 Photograph: National Ignition Facility

NIF's final optics inspection system. Scientists will use the world's most powerful laser to create 192 separate beams of light that will be directed at a bead of frozen hydrogen in a violent burst lasting five billionths of a second Photograph: National Ignition Facility

NIF is not only the world's largest laser, but also the largest optical instrument ever built. This potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystal, weighing almost 800 pounds (360kg), acts as the laser optic. It was produced through a newly developed rapid-growth process that takes only two months, as opposed to two years using conventional methods. Each crystal is sliced into 40cm-square crystal plates. More than 600 of these plates are needed for NIF Photograph: National Ignition Facility

The 10m-diameter target chamber, installed in June 1999, weighs 287,000 pounds (137,000kg). The building, which has taken almost 15 years to build and commission, is due to be opened in a ceremony attended by the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, and the California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said the facility could "revolutionise our energy future" Photograph: National Ignition Facility

This is a laser glass slab in a line replaceable unit (LRU) - a large metal frame that holds various types of lenses, mirrors or glass that can be easily installed in a beamline or removed for maintenance. This glass slab LRU will be installed between two flashlamp cassettes that fire as the laser beam passes through, causing the beam to pick up energy from the specially treated glass on its way to the target chamber Photograph: National Ignition Facility

This artist's rendering shows a NIF target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams entering through openings on either end. The intense beams produce a powerful shockwave that crunches the fuel pellet at a million miles an hour, generating temperatures of around 100,000,000C. Under such extreme conditions, which are found only in the core of stars, the hydrogen atoms will fuse, producing helium and vast amounts of energy Photograph: National Ignition Facility

The 10-storey building is the size of three football fields. If the machine works as planned, it will become the first to generate more energy than it consumes, a feat that could pave the way for commercial laser fusion power stations and an end to the world's energy security problems Photograph: National Ignition Facility