Realta Fusion announced it has achieved direct energy conversion at the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM), powering a lightbulb using electricity extracted from charged particles emitted by the plasma.

This process, called direct energy conversion (DEC), was theorized by Richard Post, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and has been demonstrated experimentally a few times, the earliest being the “Venetian blind” converter in the 1970s.

A new type of cold spray coating, made from the metal tantalum and applied to the plasma-facing steel walls of fusion reactors, could lead to efficient, compact fusion reactors that are easy to repair and maintain, according to a study recently published in the journal Physica Scripta. The study was led by scientists and engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and involved researchers from South Korea, France, and Germany.