{"id":21326,"date":"2026-06-03T11:56:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/the-worlds-largest-privately-owned-laser-just-turned-on\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T11:56:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:56:29","slug":"the-worlds-largest-privately-owned-laser-just-turned-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/the-worlds-largest-privately-owned-laser-just-turned-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s largest privately owned laser just turned on"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div readability=\"74.923715620135\">\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fusion startup Xcimer Energy on Wednesday flipped the switch on its Phoenix laser system, which the company says is the largest privately owned example in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Xcimer&rsquo;s approach to fusion power is modeled after the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which proved in December 2022 that a controlled fusion reaction could release more power than required to ignite it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The NIF trained 192 laser beams on a fuel target smaller than a pencil eraser. The energy from the lasers hit the gold target. As the lasers obliterate the gold target, their energy is converted into X-rays, which are focused on the fuel pellet inside, compressing it until atoms in the fuel fuse and release energy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company is betting that more powerful, less complex lasers will help turn NIF&rsquo;s concept for fusion power into something more profitable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Xcimer&rsquo;s plans for a fusion power plant call for two lasers capable of firing in microsecond-long pulses. Light from those pulses will be fed through a compression system, of sorts, which will delivers the lasers&rsquo; energy to the fuel target in nanoseconds. The quicker the fuel is compressed, the more likely it is to generate usable fusion reactions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Phoenix is a step toward an eventual power plant. The system uses excimer amplification, similar to those used in semiconductor manufacturing but significantly more powerful. At full strength, the krypton-fluoride laser generates over 1 kilojoule of energy, Xcimer told TechCrunch, and its core is 38 meters long.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While that may be the most powerful privately owned laser, it&rsquo;s still a fraction of what the company says it will need for a commercial power plant, which could exceed 12 megajoules.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Xcimer hopes to complete a prototype in 2028 before working on a larger system that it hopes will produce at least as much power as it consumes. Sometime in the mid-2030s, it is planning to build its first commercial scale power plant.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn&rsquo;t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>The world&rsquo;s largest privately owned laser just turned on<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fusion startup Xcimer Energy on Wednesday flipped the switch on its Phoenix laser system, which the company says is the largest privately owned example in the world. Xcimer&rsquo;s approach to fusion power is modeled after the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which proved in December 2022 that a controlled fusion reaction could release more power than&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/the-worlds-largest-privately-owned-laser-just-turned-on\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;The world\u2019s largest privately owned laser just turned on&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}