Doug Hammond
VICE PRESIDENT OF LASER ENGINEERING, FOCUSED ENERGY INC.
DURING HIS FRESHMAN YEAR of undergrad, Hammond sought out a research assistant position that offered him real world experience in mechanical engineering design and began working in a laser laboratory within the physics department. Within a few years, he became lead mechanical engineer for the lab and gained extensive experience in mechanical engineering design and analysis, lasers, and project management—all before even graduating.
Entering the professional field already possessing such experience set him up for a fast-progressing career in engineering. Now vice president of laser engineering at Focused Energy—a laser-driven inertial fusion energy startup based in Austin, Texas, and Darmstadt, Germany—Hammond shared that he can’t envision a more impactful technology than fusion energy. It has the potential to supply safe, clean, and relatively limitless energy on earth. There isn’t anything he would rather be working on. “I’ve always been drawn to trying to solve the problems that haven’t been solved before,” he said.
Focused Energy was one of eight companies selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to participate in the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. "It’s very validating to have the DOE review the approach and have confidence that it could work,” Hammond said. He explained that his company is taking a direct-drive, proton fast ignition approach to reach the robust and high-gain ignition needed for commercial energy production.
“Fusion energy has the potential to solve one of mankind's greatest challenges, so we must solve the technological challenges to make it a reality.”
Doug Hammond
The size of some of the laser systems Hammond works with is very atypical—they could be as long as a football field. "Some of the lasers we build are multi kilojoule per shot,” he explained. “They are housed in cleanrooms and require large optics to handle the high pulse energies.” Most of the energetic beams need to be propagated in a vacuum, or else they would ionize and break down the air.
Having spent much of his career around high-energy lasers, Hammond stated that the challenge of fusion energy was one that is not a question of if it will be solved, but when. “The physics of laser-driven D-T fusion has now been demonstrated,” Hammond said. However, a number of significant engineering challenges need to be overcome to make laser fusion commercially viable. The problems are all very solvable with the right resources applied to them, he said.
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