Public / Research · Scale-up (founded 2022) · Redwood City, CA
Xcimer Energy
| Vacuum (at rest) | Reaction chamber is not a clean high vacuum but a FLiBe-vapor environment behind a thick liquid-salt wall (HYLIFE-III); only two small beam penetrations |
|---|---|
| Vacuum (operation) | Laser inertial fusion: e-beam-pumped KrF excimer driver (~248 nm) at 0.5–1 Hz; dynamic vacuum = clearing/condensing FLiBe vapor between shots so the UV beam can propagate and the next cryo target survives |
| Power | Electron-beam-pumped gas (excimer) laser; 10+ MJ driver |
| Voltage | High-voltage e-beam pumping of the KrF gas medium (pulsed) |
| Product | 10+ MJ KrF laser driver + HYLIFE-III thick-liquid-wall power plant; <1 m² final-optics area |
| Application | Commercial inertial fusion energy |
| Customer | Private (energy market); IFE-STAR / DOE adjacency |
Why it matters
Bay Area laser IFE built on the proven NIF ignition results plus the LLNL/UC Berkeley HYLIFE liquid-wall chamber. The flowing FLiBe wall and low rep rate make the dynamic-vacuum problem tractable. But shift it to salt-vapor management and a corrosive KrF gas-handling loop, both squarely vacuum-engineering territory. About 30x lower laser cost per joule than NIF.