The future of potentially clean, endless fusion power may soon be in the hands of researchers at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Long known as one of the premier laser research campuses, CSU is working with Marvel Fusion to finalize a $150 million public-private partnership to advance high-power laser research that could lead the way to nuclear fusion power generation, according to a news release.

“CSU has been at the forefront of laser research for many years, and this new partnership would cement the university as an international leader in an area of laser science that has the potential to deliver profound benefits to our planet for generations,” CSU President Amy Parsons said in the release. “The project aims to open up new avenues of research and exploration for students and faculty, and drive meaningful, long-term benefits to Fort Collins and the state.”

The new lab is supported by CSU, the state of Colorado and the U.S. Department of Energy “to ensure North America has a strong network of capable laser research facilities (to) provide access for research groups, including U.S. National Laboratories, universities, and private industry,” the release said.

The site initially selected is near CSU’s existing Advanced Beam Laboratory, built in 2013, on the CSU foothills campus.

“This is an exciting opportunity for laser-based science — a dream facility for discovery and advanced technology development with great potential for societal impact” said Jorge Rocca, director of CSU’s Laboratory for Advanced Lasers and Extreme Photonics.

CSU’s capacity to conduct high-power laser research and its applications would vastly expand under the partnership, including opportunities in clean fusion energy, microelectronics, optics and photonics, materials science, medical imaging, and high energy density science, Rocca said.

“At Marvel Fusion we have developed a novel approach to bring fusion to reality and commercialized fusion in future power plants,” Heike Freund, chief operating officer at Marvel Fusion, said in an interview with The Gazette.

The company is developing a new laser technology that was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2018 that can create very short and rapid (up to 10 times per second), but highly intense laser pulses of the kind required to ignite a fusion reaction, Freund said.

Depending on the type of fuel, it can require temperatures anywhere from around 27 million degrees F in the sun’s core to experimental fusion reactors such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, southern France — which aims to achieve temperatures of around 207 million degrees (10 times hotter than the sun’s core) to sustain a controlled fusion reaction.

But, she said, this will not be a fusion power plant. This kind of triple laser beam array will enable researchers to show all the elements needed to validate Marvel Fusion’s fusion concept.

“These laser beams will enable us to show all the core aspects of our fusion concepts,” Freund said. “So, that is laser absorption, particle acceleration, (and) fusion reactions — all of the individual pieces that are required to validate our physics.”

A nuclear power reactor, Freund added, could use hundreds of individual laser beams to trigger a stable fusion reaction.

“This is a perfect example of academia and industry working together to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges,” said Grant Calhoun, director of industry research contracting at Colorado State University, in an interview. “In this competitive landscape you have to invest in order to maintain excellence and grow, and developing the best professionals through CSU undergraduate and graduate students to thrive in academia or industry really burnishes CSU’s reputation as a destination for the best talent in the world in this area.”