Gain is determined by how the target is designed and how that design interacts with the laser during the brief moments of implosion. Target design evolution has unlocked greater and greater gains for the past several years at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). However, the NIF laser is limited to a handful of ignition science shots per year at full energy. Once we have a 10 MJ laser that can be shot 10 times per second, we will rapidly evolve target designs.

Our fusion power plant design needs a minimum gain of 18 to “close the power cycle,” meaning enough to power the plant itself while producing excess electricity for the grid. At a gain of 18, our plant design produces 50 MW electricity to the grid. Not enough to be commercially viable, but enough to achieve the Department of Energy’s first milestone for a “Fusion Pilot Plant.”

Our scaled up 10 MJ laser based on the proven NIF target design is projected to achieve a gain of 18 without any further design improvements. But to create commercially interesting levels of power, we will need higher gain. Luckily, all additional energy goes straight to the grid once you’ve “closed the energy cycle.” So, for a 500 MW plant, we require a gain of 30x. And for a 1.5 GW power plant, we need a gain of 45x.

With only a handful of development shots per year, the team at NIF has increased the energy output 6x since 2021. If we can test target designs as frequently as we want, we will remove the primary limiter on progress toward higher Gain targets, and more quickly increase the energy output. From 18x gain, which is already designed into our baseline target, to 45x, which is our nominal goal, is an improvement of 2.5 times, which will be achieved through well understood design modifications accessible with the higher laser energies. With unlimited design shots available on our laser, we believe that goal is readily achievable.

While previous work called for much higher gains of 100x or more, those projections were based on a much smaller 3 MJ laser. Our 10 MJ laser design requires much more modest gains to achieve similar levels of power production and will provide a higher margin for robust operations and more flexibility in target fabrication specifications.