Accelerated iteration in FRCs: Helion's 'Tiny Merge' testbed

Helion Energy is operating under the industry's most aggressive commercial timeline, having signed a binding power purchase agreement with Microsoft for 2028. To resolve fundamental plasma physics questions regarding the formation and merging of field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasma rings without exhausting the resources required for full-scale prototypes, the company has commissioned 'Tiny Merge.'

This eight-foot-long tubular testbed is less than one-eighth the size of Polaris and utilizes heavy-duty capacitor banks to enable rapid, low-cost diagnostic iterations. Engineers can test coil geometries, pulse-timing sequences, and diagnostic placements in weeks rather than the months required on the main Polaris assembly line.

Data gathered from Tiny Merge will directly inform the final engineering designs for Orion, Helion's commercial-scale facility. The company has emphasized that FRC merging — the collision and thermalization of two counter-propagating plasma rings — remains the single most consequential physics uncertainty in its path to net electricity.