Fusion energy
Prototypemomentum 73486 papers in 3 months (+47% yearly)$2.3B raised in 12 months21 companies
Making power by fusing light atoms like hydrogen isotopes, the process that fuels the sun, with no long-lived waste.
Why prototype: No machine has made net electricity yet; NIF has repeated ignition, with a record 8.6 MJ yield and target gain of 4.13 in 2025. Jun 20, 2026
Dots under a month: dated events tracked here that month.
26 events
About fusion energy here
- Sub-areas
- Magnetic confinement tokamaks, Stellarators, Laser inertial fusion, Magnetized target fusion, Field-reversed configuration, Pulsed power and Z-pinch, Magnetic mirrors, HTS magnets and supply chain
- Stage evidence
- Prototype, Jun 20, 2026: No machine has made net electricity yet; NIF has repeated ignition, with a record 8.6 MJ yield and target gain of 4.13 in 2025. lasers.llnl.gov
- Momentum
- 73 of 100: the mean of its ranks among the tracked fields for paper growth (81), funding in 12 months (56) and events in 90 days (81). Method
- Papers
- 1,875 in the 12 months ending two months ago, +47% against the 12 before (OpenAlex topics, journal and conference papers).
- Tracked here since
- Sep 25, 2026
Changes to this field
| Date | Change | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 25, 2026 | Fusion energyTechnology: Added | seed | lasers.llnl.gov |