KMS Fusion

KMS Fusion was the first private company to attempt to produce a <a href="/facts/Fusion_reactor/jyETSzm4">fusion reactor</a> using the <a href="/facts/Inertial_confinement_fusion/67Lyy7nb">inertial confinement fusion</a> (ICF) approach. The basic concept, developed in 1969 by <a href="/facts/Keith_Brueckner/cyguEc8S">Keith Brueckner</a>, was to infuse small glass spheres with a fuel gas and then compress the sphere using <a href="/facts/Laser/jk6PTvvT">lasers</a> until they reached the required temperature and pressures. In May 1974 they demonstrated <a href="/facts/Neutron/oRCM1geb">neutron</a> output consistent with small levels of fusion events in a D-T filled target, the first published success for this technique.
Unknown to the company when they proposed the idea in 1969, several of the <a href="/facts/US_Atomic_Energy_Commission/7VXrvVJ9">US Atomic Energy Commission</a> (AEC) labs were also working on the same concept, which at that time was highly classified. The labs continually agitated against KMS's efforts. When the successful tests met the lab's predictions, far below KMS's own predictions, the AEC used the success as proof their designs were better. The company attempted to arrange funding from the AEC for continued development, but the company founder, <a href="/facts/Kip_Siegel/GpVLMtsf">Kip Siegel</a>, died in 1975 while testifying to congress on the topic.
The company continued on mainline ICF for the next several years, first using Siegel's <a href="/facts/Life_insurance/WEtqgGoj">life insurance</a> policy and then funding from the AEC. By the late 1970s, the programs simulating the ICF process demonstrated much larger lasers were needed, and KMS's continued funding into the 1980s was related almost entirely to fuel pellet fabrication and expertise in handling <a href="/facts/Tritium/HWSa6EHy">tritium</a>. In 1991, this program moved to <a href="/facts/General_Atomic/u8jAsX9y">General Atomic</a> in California and KMS closed.

KMS Fusion open-in-new

KMS Fusion