Fort Collins, Colorado, 5 November 2026 - Marvel Fusion, a global leader in laser-driven inertial fusion energy (IFE), today announced it has received a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) award for its proposal, “Development of Laser Beam Dumps for Simultaneously High Peak and Average Power Fusion Drivers.”
The project, conducted in partnership with Colorado State University (CSU), will develop and test a novel beam dump, the component that safely absorbs unused laser energy, under simultaneously high peak and average power, a combination that few beam dumps have been designed or tested to handle. The results will provide quantitative engineering data to de-risk a key component of the laser drivers being installed at the $150 million Advanced Technology Lasers for Applications and Science (ATLAS) facility currently under construction in Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as future short-pulse fusion drivers, including those planned for Marvel Fusion’s power plants.
This is Marvel Fusion's second INFUSE award, following its 2025 award for “Nonlinear Effects in High-Intensity Laser Focusing in a Simulated Fusion Reactor Environment,” also conducted in partnership with CSU. These awards are part of Marvel Fusion's broader collaborations with DOE to build a leading U.S. inertial fusion energy ecosystem, which also include contributions to the Inertial Fusion Science and Technology (RISE) Hub, led by CSU and Stanford University, and membership on the industrial council of the Target Injector Nexus for Experimental Development (TINEX), part of the DOE Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE) program.
“Securing INFUSE awards in consecutive years shows Marvel Fusion delivering on exactly the kind of public-private partnership the Department of Energy’s Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap calls for,” said Moritz von der Linden, President of Marvel Fusion Inc. “As we prepare to open the ATLAS facility in Colorado, our growing collaboration with leading U.S. research institutions is helping build the domestic laser and fusion supply chain America needs to lead, and accelerating our path to putting abundant, reliable, and affordable fusion power on the grid in the mid-2030s.”
"Breakthroughs in fusion depend on research that is often too early-stage and too high-risk for any one company to take on alone," said Puja Gupta, Executive Vice President and Head of U.S. Operations at Marvel Fusion Inc. "INFUSE bridges that gap by connecting fusion developers with the world-class expertise and facilities of America's universities and national laboratories, so that bold, high-reward ideas get tested rather than shelved. A commercial laser fusion plant will fire many times per second, around the clock, and every part of the laser chain has to withstand that. Managing unused laser energy at these power levels has not yet been demonstrated at the scale fusion power plants will require, and solving it now will therefore remove an obstacle on our pathway to the grid."
Dr. Alexander Meadows, Laser Scientist at Marvel Fusion and Principal Investigator of the INFUSE project, commented: "Together with CSU, we will model, build and test prototype beam dumps under the conditions our lasers will create at ATLAS. The results from this research campaign will provide critical quantitative engineering data and de-risk a key component for short-pulse IFE laser drivers, first for ATLAS and then for future fusion power plants.”
Dr. Reed Hollinger, Assistant Professor in the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, CSU, and CSU Principal Investigator, added: “At CSU, we have a long tradition of building our own high power laser equipment, from the ALEPH laser to the hardware around it. We’ll take the same hands-on approach here, designing prototypes, machining them at CSU, testing them with our lasers, and iterating quickly. Together with Marvel Fusion, we’ll find out how far this design can scale toward fusion drivers.”
Marvel Fusion’s growing presence in Colorado reflects the company’s commitment to transatlantic fusion development. In June 2026, the company signed a Letter of Intent with the State of Colorado and Siemens Energy, in the presence of Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Bavarian Minister of Science and Arts Markus Blume, to strengthen transatlantic collaboration and accelerate the development and commercialization of fusion energy. With its second INFUSE award and continued progress on ATLAS, Marvel Fusion is aligning its U.S. investments with its mission to bring fusion energy to market.
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