Helion's mission is to fully satisfy the world’s need for clean abundant energy, saving the planet from climate change and improving the well-being of humanity.
At Helion, every team member contributes to building a world where carbon-free electricity costs are low, raising the standard of living for every person on the planet.
Dr. David Kirtley
Founder & CEO
Chris Pihl
Co-Founder & CTO
Dr. George Votroubek
Co-Founder & Principal Scientist
Helion's unique pulsed, non-ignition-fusion device will generate zero-carbon electricity from deuterium and helium-3. This is made possible by combining modern power electronics with the work done by scientists and engineers since the 1950s.
The Three-stage Toy Top device is developed and tested by Dr. Coensgen as part of Project Sherwood at the University of California Radiation Lab (UCRL). The device compresses plasma in three staged chambers to produce a high-density, high-temperature plasma. Experiments demonstrate the machine's ability to achieve ion energies several hundred times their value at injection through a multi-stage compression approach.
Tokamak T-3 is tested by Mirnov at the Kurchatov Institute. T-3 exhibits electron temperatures up to 1 keV and densities as high as 3x10¹³ cm⁻³. The results demonstrate superior low-density plasma conditions compared to any other fusion device at the time. Mirnov's results are US validated.
These results are extremely promising and lead scientists to pursue tokamaks as the primary fusion device. Billions of dollars are spent on tokamak concepts for the coming decades.
The 2X - experiment is conducted by Coensgen at Livermore National Lab. Hot dense plasma is captured then compressed in a magnetic well mirror field. Maximum mean ion energy reaches 8 keV and exceeds any competing technique for more than a decade. This demonstrated that high-temperature plasmas can be held long enough for fusion to occur. These approaches reached the limits of pulsed, high-voltage electronics at the time.
Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory create theoretical models of inductive energy recovery from a pulsed magnetic system and pulsed plasma. Although the models suggested a way to directly recover electricity, electronics at the time limited the expected system efficiency.
An FRC-like fusion device is theorized for the first time by researchers University of Illinois. Dubbed the moving plasmoid heater (MPH), the machine, comprised of pulsed magnets, a burn chamber, and an expander chamber, showed promise for a pulsed plasma fusion generator scheme for electricity generation.
The Large-S Experiment (LSX), conducted by Alan Hoffman's team at University of Washington, provides US validation of field-reversed configuration (FRC) formation and confinement of fusion-relevant plasmas for up to 1 ms. High-beta plasmas are formed and provide good confinement with large-trapped magnetic flux and plasma magnetic radius.
Helion's founding team constructs IPA (Inductive Plasma Accelerator) as a proof of concept at MSNW in Redmond, WA. IPA demonstrates high-beta formation, acceleration, and merging of FRC plasmas for the first time, proving a viable target for magnetic compression.
The team constructs IPA-C (Inductive Plasma Accelerator - Compression), which demonstrates the first compression of FRC plasmas to fusion conditions. Using a high-beta FRC, IPA-C heats deuterium fuel to 1+ keV and measures significant amounts of neutrons, proving evidence for a fusion reaction. IPA-C is celebrated as best fusion of 2011 by the Journal of Nuclear Fusion.
Dr. David Kirtley, Chris Pihl, Dr. John Slough, and Dr. George Votroubek found Helion with the goal to build a fusion system designed for commercial electricity.
Grande, Helion's 4th fusion prototype, is developed to test high field operation. Grande achieves magnetic field compression of 4 Tesla, forms cm-scale FRCs, and reaches plasma temperatures of 5 keV. Grande outperforms any other private fusion company.
Helion demonstrates the first direct magnetic energy recovery from a subscale pulsed magnetic system, utilizing modern high-voltage insulated gate bipolar transistors to recover energy at over 95% round-trip efficiency for over 1 million pulses. In a smaller system, the team demonstrates the formation of more than 1 billion FRCs.
Venti, Helion's 5th fusion prototype, with support from ARPA-E, is constructed to test the scalability of the results from IPA-C and Grande. Venti produces magnetic fields of 7 Tesla and reaches ion temperatures of 2 keV at high density. Fusion output is the highest ever recorded by private or pulsed magnetic fusion.
Trenta, Helion's 6th fusion prototype, demonstrates the largest and most energetic high-beta or FRC fusion plasmas ever created. Trenta compresses FRC plasmas to over 8 Tesla, reaches plasma temperatures greater than 9 keV (100M°C) (ion temperatures over 8 keV and electron temperatures over 2 keV), and proves sufficient plasma confinement to generate electricity.
Helion moves its headquarters from Redmond, WA to Everett, WA. In Everett, the team begins to construct Polaris, Helion's 7th fusion prototype.
