First Light Fusion

First Light Fusion was founded at and spun out of the University of Oxford in 2011. It is headquartered in Oxfordshire, England. The founders are Nicholas Hawker and Yiannis Ventikos.

First Light's approach is inertial confinement fusion (ICF). They accelerate a projectile via rail gun and impact it into an optimized target to generate the high temperatures and densities required. Heavy use of computer modeling is utilized to optimize the design of their targets. Their approach is inspired by the pistol shrimp which generates shock waves in water via a comparable technique.

First Light Fusion has received funding from both institutional and individual investors and has partnered with Mott MacDonald, a global engineering consultancy, to design a first of its kind commercial fusion reactor concept.