An American company developing the dense plasma focus for aneutronic hydrogen-boron fusion — pursuing the simplest possible path to clean fusion energy.
LPP Fusion (formerly Lawrenceville Plasma Physics) is a small American fusion energy company based in New Jersey that is developing the dense plasma focus (DPF) device as a route to aneutronic fusion power using hydrogen-boron (p-11B) fuel. The company is led by physicist Eric Lerner, who has advocated for the DPF approach since the 1980s.[1]
The dense plasma focus is a pulsed device that creates a short-lived, extremely hot and dense plasma pinch through electromagnetic self-organization. A capacitor bank discharges through a gas between coaxial electrodes, and the resulting current sheath collapses into a tight pinch — the plasmoid — where ion temperatures can momentarily reach billions of degrees.[2]
LPP Fusion's strategy centers on achieving the extreme temperatures (above 100 keV mean ion energy) needed for p-11B fusion, which requires roughly ten times the temperature of deuterium-tritium reactions but produces energy almost entirely as charged particles rather than neutrons. This would eliminate the need for neutron shielding, tritium breeding blankets, and radioactive waste management.[3]
The company's FF-2B device (Focus Fusion 2B) has demonstrated ion temperatures exceeding 2 billion degrees Celsius in confined plasmoid structures, using progressively refined electrode designs and operating with various fill gases. The program has systematically worked to increase plasma density and confinement time simultaneously to approach net energy conditions.
The DPF approach faces significant scientific challenges: simultaneously achieving the temperature, density, and confinement time needed for p-11B ignition in a device governed by complex plasma instabilities. The Lawson criterion for p-11B is far more demanding than for D-T fuel, and the DPF's confinement scaling with device size remains an open question. Nevertheless, the device's mechanical simplicity and the transformative potential of aneutronic fusion continue to motivate the research.