ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
June 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
Antares achieves zero-power criticality at INL
Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.
Qing Zhang, Peiyun Shi, Ming Liu, Munan Lin, Xuan Sun
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 1 | July 2015 | Pages 50-55
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems 2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-866
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An electrode biasing system has been installed on the KMAX (Keda Mirror with AXisymmetricity) tandem mirror machine to control the rotation speed. It consists of a metal disk-type electrode and a concentric ring-shaped electrode. On each of them are 12 embedded single probes distributed uniformly in the azimuthal direction plus a single probe on the center. An adjustable power supply provides the biasing voltage from −1 kV to 1 kV, and a silicon controlled rectifier with rising time ~5 μs and maximum current up to 3000 A is used to switch on the circuit. While most of applied voltages are inevitably lost on the sheath as confirmed by the experiments, the plasma potentials have been found to change substantially.