Fusion
Fusion Science at Wisconsin
Signature Strength · Supports: Strategic Energy · Scaled Directed Energy
Few institutions have contributed more to fusion science than UW–Madison. Across decades of sustained research in plasma physics and fusion engineering, the university has trained hundreds of Ph.D. plasma physicists, operates multiple experimental fusion devices, and seeded a cluster of fusion companies that has made Wisconsin a national center of the emerging fusion industry.
Limitless distributed power — fusion-driven energy with transport at terawatt scale — is one of the College of Engineering’s six Engineering Moonshots, and sustainable energy systems are a central theme of the campuswide RISE-EARTH initiative.
Research Strengths
magnetic mirror confinement · high-field HTS magnets · stellarator optimization · spherical tokamaks · plasma physics & diagnostics · fusion neutronics & materials · fusion engineering & systems · medical isotope production
Related: Research Domain
The rest of the energy enterprise
Advanced fission, nonproliferation and safeguards, grid resilience, and engines and propulsion: the Nuclear & Energy Systems page. Explore Nuclear & Energy →
Experimental Facilities
WHAM
The Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror, built in partnership with MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems, uses high-temperature superconducting magnets to revive and modernize the magnetic mirror concept — achieving in 2024 the highest magnetic field ever applied to confine a plasma.
Pegasus-III
A spherical tokamak experiment in the Department of Engineering Physics advancing the understanding of magnetically confined high-temperature plasmas, with the goal of lowering the cost of future fusion energy production.
HSX & WiPPL
The Helically Symmetric eXperiment — a one-of-a-kind optimized stellarator — and the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory, home of the Madison Symmetric Torus, round out one of the most diverse university fusion research portfolios in the world.
Beyond Energy
The science behind fusion serves missions well beyond energy.
High-Field Superconducting Magnets
WHAM holds the record for the highest magnetic field ever used to confine a plasma, built on high-temperature superconducting magnet technology developed with MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The same magnets enable compact power systems, electric propulsion, and the high-field devices behind directed energy.
Plasma-Materials Interaction & Neutronics
Fusion devices punish materials with extreme heat flux and intense neutron bombardment. Wisconsin research on first-wall materials, fusion neutronics, and radiation damage is the science of making hardware survive hostile environments, from reactor cores to hypersonic and directed-energy systems.
High-Power RF & Pulsed Power
Heating and driving a fusion plasma takes megawatt-class radio-frequency and microwave sources, neutral beams, and pulsed power systems. Campus experiments operate this infrastructure daily, a direct line to the high-power electromagnetics and directed-energy work in the Spectrum portfolio.
Compact Fusion for Installations & Forward Power
The U.S. government is already piloting fission microreactors for installation energy resilience and has directed assessments of compact fusion for the same role and for on-orbit power. The magnetic mirror, revived at WHAM and commercialized by Realta Fusion, is among the most compact fusion concepts in development.
Fusion Neutrons, Isotopes & Nuclear Security
Fusion neutron sources produce medical isotopes and enable radiography and inspection, the path SHINE Technologies took from campus to industry. Wisconsin researchers also work on tritium accountancy for fusion fuel cycles through the NNSA nonproliferation consortia, where safeguards for fusion are being designed from the start.
AI-Accelerated Fusion & the Plasma Workforce
Four of Wisconsin’s seven lead DOE Genesis Mission Phase I awards apply AI to fusion, including real-time plasma control with DIII-D and SLAC, and accelerated breeding-blanket design. Behind them stands a program that has trained hundreds of Ph.D. plasma physicists, the workforce every fusion and plasma-dependent defense program needs.
From Lab to Industry
Wisconsin’s fusion research has launched a wave of companies commercializing technologies pioneered on campus — including Realta Fusion, advancing compact magnetic mirror fusion systems born from the WHAM program; SHINE Technologies, applying fusion processes to medical isotope production and inspection; and Type One Energy, pursuing stellarator fusion power built on lessons from HSX. Together they have made the Madison region one of the nation’s most active fusion industry clusters.
The Dual-Use Imperative
Fusion’s civilian promise is the biggest energy prize there is: clean, abundant power for everyone. But the dividends are already arriving; for example, fusion processes produce the medical isotopes used in cancer diagnosis and treatment, plasma science underpins the semiconductor manufacturing behind every modern device, and high-field magnet technology advances medical imaging and scientific instruments worldwide.
Why It Matters
For national security, fusion represents more than future energy: it is strategic energy resilience, industrial base strength, and leadership in a technology race the United States cannot afford to lose. And the plasma science underneath it — confinement, high-field magnets, plasma-materials interaction — is the same expertise that underpins next-generation defense technologies, including directed energy.
WINS connects mission partners to Wisconsin’s fusion and plasma researchers, facilities, and industry cluster.
Research Leads
The faculty who lead this domain’s engagement with mission partners. Contact WINS to be connected.