Fusion Breakthrough: Compact New Device Reaches Temperatures of 37 Million Degrees

A new study documents record-breaking electron temperatures in a compact, sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch fusion device.
In the nine decades since humans first produced fusion reactions, only a few fusion technologies have demonstrated the ability to make a thermal fusion plasma with electron temperatures hotter than 10 million degrees Celsius, roughly the temperature of the core of the sun. Zap Energy’s unique approach, known as a sheared-flow-stabilized Z pinch, has now joined those rarefied ranks, far exceeding this plasma temperature milestone in a device that is a fraction of the scale of other fusion systems.