Yikes indeed! with the headline, I was thinking that this was some variant of the National Ignition facility, trying to heat up samples enough to break the nuc

Yikes indeed! with the headline, I was thinking that this was some variant of the National Ignition facility, trying to heat up samples enough to break the nucleii... but yeah, without massive intensities like at the NIF I don't wee how optical photons would even be noticed by the heavy nucleii. I'd hope there's more to it that the journalist just failed to catch...