HELION'S FUSION TECHNOLOGY

The founders of Helion believe that fusion isn’t a fundamental physics problem, but an engineering problem that will be solved by building, testing, and iterating fusion systems and subsystems. By focusing on our true goal - clean, safe, and abundant electricity - we can approach fusion from a new angle.

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Our approach does three major things differently from other fusion approaches:

1. We utilize a pulsed, non-ignition fusion system. This helps us overcome the hardest physics challenges, build highly energy-efficient systems, and allows us to adjust the power output based on need by adjusting the pulse rate.

2. Our system is built to directly recover electricity. Just like regenerative braking in an electric car, our system is built to recover all unused and new electromagnetic energy efficiently. Other fusion systems rely on heating water to create steam to turn a turbine which loses a lot of energy in the process.

3. We use deuterium and helium-3 (D-He-3) as fuel. Deuterium-helium-3 fusion results in charged particles that can be directly recaptured as electricity. This helps keep our system small and efficient, allowing us to build faster and at a lower cost. This fuel cycle also reduces neutron emissions, substantially reducing many of the engineering challenges faced by users of deuterium-tritium fusion fuel.

Helion plans to produce helium-3 in its machines through a closed-loop fuel cycle. D-D reactions produce helium-3 directly in one branch and tritium in another branch. Tritium decays into helium-3 over time. Helion captures, separates, and recycles these isotopes to reduce reliance on scarce external helium-3 sources.

A Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) is a high-beta plasma confinement concept used in Helion's fusion systems. In an FRC, the plasma is contained within a toroidal (doughnut) shape and is surrounded by a magnetic field. Unlike other fusion confinement concepts, such as tokamaks or stellarators, the entire plasma and its associated magnetic field form a self-contained structure with no internal magnets.

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The key characteristic of an FRC is that the plasma's magnetic field lines form closed loops within the plasma itself, rather than connecting to external structures. This is achieved by using a combination of magnetic fields, typically created by a combination of external coils and plasma currents.

No. Not all fusion systems require ignition. Helion’s system is designed to operate without relying on the plasma to self-sustain through ignition, enabled by our pulsed operations.

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Helion’s approach depends on three efficiency advantages: direct recovery of fusion energy as electricity, high-beta operation, and pulsed operation. Because Helion recovers and reuses much of the electrical energy put into each pulse, the system does not need to cross the ignition threshold in the same way that many traditional fusion approaches do.

Helion’s system is designed to recover electricity directly from the plasma through electromagnetic induction.

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The FRC plasmas in our machine are high-beta and, due to their internal electrical current, produce their own magnetic field, which pushes on the magnetic field from the machine’s electromagnets. The FRCs collide in the fusion chamber and are compressed by the field from these central compression coils. That compression causes the plasma to become denser and hotter, initiating fusion reactions that cause the plasma’s internal energy to increase, and eventually cause the plasma to expand. The field from the expanding plasma pushes on the field from the magnets and transfers energy from the plasma to the electrical system powering the electromagnets. This process is explained by Faraday's Law of Induction.