Focused Energy, Livermore Lab Join in Support of Fusion Research

Focused Energy and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California have announced the signing of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to develop a model simulating the behavior of low-density foams wetted with liquid deuterium and tritium during implosion. The agreement supports the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s INFUSE project. Focused, based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Darmstadt, Germany, and LLNL were previously awarded competitive grant funding for the project through the DOE’s Office of Science’s Innovation Network for Fusion Energy, or INFUSE, program, which aims to accelerate fusion energy development through public-private research partnerships. “The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated the fundamental physics of laser fusion when it achieved ignition in 2022,” said Scott Mercer, CEO of Focused Energy. “Now, we are evolving the targets, lasers, and facility design to move from scientific proof to continuous laser-driven fusion energy generation as we build off NIF’s approach. This partnership will advance Focused Energy’s research into how to optimize target design, underscoring the importance of public-private partnerships in advancing commercial fusion.” Mercer told POWER, “A core factor in our decision to move our U.S. headquarters to the Bay Area was to be in close proximity to the physics community here, including institutions like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where a team of world-class scientists used a laser-driven approach to achieve ignition for the first time. Now, many of the scientists who led that team are working at Focused to optimize the targets, lasers, and facilities necessary to build a future fusion power plant. Public-private partnerships such as this one are critical to accelerating our work to make fusion a commercial reality.”

Creating Fusion Fuel

In order for fusion to be commercially viable, the process for creating fusion fuel targets needs to be more efficient to scale with the high-repetition rate necessary for high-energy gain. A fusion power plant capable of sending power to the grid will require 10 fusion fuel targets per second. [caption id="attachment_228951" align="alignnone" width="640"]

This is an image of a 2-Photon-Polymerization (2PP) printed foam-shell target to be filled with cryogenic hydrogen fusion fuel. Courtesy: Fabian Christ, Targetry Team, Focused Energy[/caption] Wetted foams offer a viable path to reduce the time it takes to make a deuterium-tritium layer within a fusion fuel target. However, there are uncertainties in the hydrodynamic behavior of the foam material during the implosion process. The simulation model developed under the CRADA will be used to set specifications on the foam properties required for a future laser fusion power plant. If successful, wetted foams could require less tritium for target production while decreasing costs and speeding up production. Focused is building upon LLNL’s groundbreaking work by pursuing direct drive laser fusion. The company will develop low-cost, millimeter-scale deuterium-tritium fuel targets capable of being produced at commercial scale at its fuel targetry lab located in Darmstadt. It will also test and optimize its laser systems at its new $65 million Laser Development Facility in the Bay Area located in close proximity to LLNL. Ultimately, Focused will combine its laser technology and fuel targets into an integrated engineering facility and then in a commercial-scale fusion power plant capable of net energy gain. The company benefits from four additional DOE INFUSE Awards and has raised more than $200 million in private capital and public grant funding. Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.