Overview
- General Fusion reported that its LM26 demonstration reached an electron temperature of 1.1 keV (about 12.6 million °C) just before peak compression, a level long used as a benchmark in fusion research.
- The temperature was measured using Thomson scattering equipment jointly designed with the UK Atomic Energy Authority, including a polychromator from the Culham Diagnostic Innovation Centre of Excellence, and technical papers have been submitted for peer review.
- General Fusion says it is upgrading LM26 to pursue a roughly tenfold higher target around 10 keV and to move toward the Lawson criterion as part of a staged plan that the company links to a first‑of‑a‑kind plant around 2035.
- Key challenges remain because the measured value describes electron heating only; ion heating, sufficient plasma density and confinement time and any demonstration of net energy gain (Q>1) have not yet been shown.
- The result underscores cross‑border public–private collaboration and fresh investment in fusion diagnostics, and it should be judged by upcoming peer review and the company’s next experimental milestones rather than by this single measurement alone.