First Light Says It’s Hit Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough With No Fancy Lasers, Magnets
10th April 2022
British outfit First Light Fusion claims it has achieved nuclear fusion with an approach that could provide cheap, clean power.
Rather than rely on expensive lasers, complicated optical gear, and magnetic fields, as some fusion reactor designs do, First Light’s equipment instead shoots a tungsten projectile out of a gas-powered gun at a target dropped into a chamber.
We’re told that, in a fully working reactor, this high-speed projectile will hit the moving target, which contains a small deuterium fuel capsule that implodes in the impact. This rapid implosion causes the fuel’s atoms to fuse, which releases a pulse of energy.