fusion reactor

Its builders hope the knowledge from ITER will improve the next generation fusion reactors, called the Demonstration Fusion Power Plant, or DEMO.

They’re splitting their efforts between two types of fusion reactors.

Most fusion reactors use a design called a tokamak, which confines the plasma in a donut-shaped vessel with a large magnet in the middle and many magnetic coils looping around the container.

Magnets are the most popular approach to controlling fusion reactors because the roiling ball of super-heated plasma at their heart is made up of charged particles that can be corralled using magnetic fields.

Like the ITER plant, the company’s SPARC reactor is a tokamak, the name for a specific design of fusion reactors.