A multi-institutional team will explore a new method for creating fusion power it hopes could eventually be scaled to provide safe, clean, and abundant energy. Support for the project comes from a combined
£12 million from First Light Fusion, the company behind this new approach, and UK Research and
Innovation’s Prosperity Partnership scheme.
The project will see Oxford researchers from the Departments of Engineering Science and Physics join
forces with colleagues from Imperial College London, University of York, and industrial partners First
Light Fusion and Machine Discovery.
Nuclear fusion occurs when the nuclei of two atoms, for example hydrogen atoms, are combined to create a different element such as helium, releasing a huge amount of spare energy due to the difference in weight between the atomic ingredients and the newly created atom. Fusion is known to have
transformational potential as a safe, clean, and abundant energy source if fusion conditions, which require intense heat and pressure, could be created. However, techniques tried so far have only generated limited amounts of energy, leading to questions about the scalability of such methods and of fusion power in general.
University of Oxford spinout First Light Fusion is developing a technique it believes could prove more
scalable than those tried so far, based on projectile fusion. Under the new partnership, researchers from
across the three universities and two companies will work together to study the behaviour of materials at
extreme temperatures, pressures and densities, examining how heat, matter, and radiation flow at
interfaces between those materials.
Professor Dan Eakins (Department of Engineering Science) and Professors Gianluca Gregori and Sam
Vinko (Department of Physics) will investigate specific phenomena relating to hydrodynamics and heat
transport using X-ray imaging techniques they have developed over the years.
Professor Eakins explains, ‘By recreating these extreme conditions at a 4 th generation synchrotron, we will freeze these processes in their tracks, providing much-needed data to exercise, stretch, and even break our current models, building back better and more viable pathways for safe, clean energy.’
Professor Gregori adds, ‘The understanding of matter under extreme conditions as found in these targets
is challenging and it requires combining computational and experimental techniques that push the
boundary of our knowledge.’
Machine Discovery, also a University of Oxford spinout, will be providing an AI-Powered solution for
compute-intensive tasks to achieve significant productivity, helping to accelerate the development of this
new approach.
‘Machine learning tools, such as neural-network-based emulators, have an important role to play in
exploring the extreme states of matter required to deliver fusion,’ comments Professor Vinko. ‘This
partnership brings together the expertise needed to address this grand challenge.’
‘This grant, which we are doubling to bring the total to £12 million, will be a vital platform in recruiting the best and brightest physicists to First Light Fusion, and more critically, unlock important physics research as we continue with our mission of solving the problem of fusion power with the simplest machine possible,’ says Dr Nick Hawker, Engineering Science alumni and co-founder and CEO of First Light Fusion.