Focused Energy Partners with LLNL on a Target Design for Inertial Fusion Energy

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Focused Energy and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have signed a Strategic Partnership Project Agreement for LLNL to assist the American-German fusion company with developing and assessing the performance of isochoric compression target designs for inertial fusion energy.

Focused Energy’s approach is to use milimetre-scale plastic capsules, filled with a small amount of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, and driven by laser to produce clean, safe, and nearly inexhaustible energy in the future. At LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), inertial fusion ignition and target gain > 1 were achieved in December 2022 - a historic breakthrough for the future production of clean energy. Under this contract, LLNL will use its codes and tools to help Focused Energy study and optimize target designs for achieving high compression in ischoric fuel assemblies required for fast ignition inertial confinement fusion. “We are very pleased to have another renowned partner on board with LLNL to optimise the target design together”, said Thomas Forner, CEO and co-founder of Focused Energy.

About Focused Energy

Focused Energy is a US and German company spun off from the Technical University of Darmstadt in 2021, that will enable safe, clean, and virtually inexhaustible energy production through laser-based nuclear fusion in just a few years. The company is based in Austin/Texas and Darmstadt/Germany and employs the best minds from relevant research institutes and universities in the USA and in Europe. Focused Energy uses the 30+ years of combined experience from its founders in fusion research, coupled with the speed of a young German-US company and private investment, to bring laser-based fusion to market and satisfy the world's hunger for energy.