We’re working on that too!

Over the coming months, Zap will continue to investigate critical technical questions while gradually ramping up Century’s repetition rate and power levels toward its 100 kW design target.

Another key update is a new liquid metal first wall design that uses centrifugal forces to cover more exposed solid metal surfaces, improving its ability to absorb plasma heat.

The new benchmark was partly enabled by a new liquid metal loop that circulates 2,500 lbs of flowing bismuth to cool the plasma chamber. This video shows the new liquid metal loop moving into place.

This 20x increase in sustained average power compared to the first phase of operations in 2024 is a major advance. Century’s early operations are detailed in a recently published paper (tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....) and were certified as a DOE milestone (zapenergy.com/news/doe-cen...).

Concentrated inside a vacuum chamber about the size of a hot water heater, each plasma carried up to 500 kA of current — about 20 times stronger than a bolt of lightning.

(background) This comes from an SEM image of a metal sample exposed to fusion plasmas in FuZE-Q. The sample was being examined as part of a materials study. Here's the same image zoomed out with scale. #internationalcatday