Helion Energy has announced a technical milestone on its path to nuclear fusion. In early 2026, after receiving authorization to handle tritium, its seventh-generation Polaris prototype achieved measurable fusion with deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel and generated plasma at 150 million degrees Celsius. This is the first time a private company has reported this specific milestone.
The Technical Approach of the Polaris Reactor ⚙️
Helion's Polaris device employs a field-reversed configuration (FRC) design heated by magnetic pulses. The current achievement confirms that its system can create and confine a plasma dense and hot enough for deuterium and tritium nuclei to overcome repulsion and fuse. The temperature of 13 keV (150 million °C) is a relevant datum, as it falls within the range necessary for the reaction to be sustainable.
And the tritium came as a gift with supermarket loyalty points 😏
The most complicated part was not reaching solar core temperature, but obtaining permission to play with tritium. After that, igniting fusion must have been a minor detail. Now all that's left is the easy part: repeating it continuously, producing more energy than is input, and building a power plant that doesn't look like the set of a science fiction movie. A minor detail.