LANL’s ZiaCore microreactor reaches criticality

August 3, 2026, 12:43PMNuclear News
The top flange of the ZiaCore microreactor experiment. (Photo: LANL)

Last week, Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that its ZiaCore microreactor was brought to zero-power criticality at high temperatures in April through May of this year during four weeks of experiments on the Deimos test bed at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC).