Prize Recipient

David Herbert Munro
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Citation:

"For outstanding theoretical work, computational design and analysis, and experimental work leading to quantitative and predictive understanding of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in high energy density plasmas."

Background:

David H. Munro received his B.S. in physics from Caltech in 1976, and his Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T. in 1980. His doctoral thesis was a study of light aircraft propeller noise. In the Fall of 1980 he joined the laser fusion target design group at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory when construction of the Nova laser facility was just beginning. He has worked on many theoretical target design issues including the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in density gradients and the evolution of rippled shock fronts. He designed and built software for analyzing results of simulations and experiments. His ongoing research includes target design for the Nova "gas bag" experiments, and calculations of the effect of flashlamp and reflector placement on NIF amplifier gain profiles.