A startup in Israel is developing a nuclear reactor no bigger than a desktop computer.

Having proved that the breakthrough technology works, Metatron N.R.G. now aims to build a fully functioning prototype.

If the researchers succeed, their miniature device could revolutionize the world of clean, affordable energy.

Metatron N.R.G. is among dozens of startups globally seeking to harness the power of nuclear fusion in small-scale reactors, but it alone has overcome significant technical hurdles to do so using micro-entities called plasmoids.

“This is a transformational invention,” said Yeshayahu Eisenberg, CEO of the company, who has a PhD in high-energy physics from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.

“By solving the core stability challenges, we are paving the way for small-scale fusion reactors that could revolutionize energy generation.”

Conventional large-scale fusion initiatives cost billions of dollars and involve decades of research, he says.

Eisenberg cofounded the company at the end of 2021 with writer, philosopher, and inventor Clara Szalai. It has three employees and $2 million in funding.

Metatron, based in Sde David, southern Israel, is developing desktop-sized reactors designed to offer a cost-effective, scalable alternative to fossil fuels that could one day power homes and industry.

The company has developed a unique form of nuclear fusion, which is considered the holy grail of energy sources.

Nuclear fusion – the high-pressure, high-temperature reaction that heats the sun – releases far more energy than nuclear fission, the process currently used to generate nuclear energy. Fusion also produces minimal radioactive waste, by comparison.

The extreme temperatures and pressures required have, however, hampered efforts to use nuclear fusion as a method of generating electricity.

While other potential processes aim to replicate the violent and extreme conditions of the sun and stars, Metatron is using plasmoids – tangled bundles of super-hot charged gas (plasma) held together by magnetic fields.

These plasmoids are generally too unstable to use for nuclear fusion but Metatron says its breakthrough is in generating new types of stable plasmoids that can effectively catalyze fusion (via the quantum mechanical effect known as tunnelling).

It’s a leap forward, the company says, that is comparable to the invention of transistors for radios and electronics in 1947 to replace larger, more expensive and less reliable vacuum tubes.

Plasmoid-based fusion “opens the doors to a novel kind of small fusion reactor, comparable in size to a desktop computer,” the company says.

“After three years of research and development, we have achieved ongoing fusion events in the lab, establishing the proof of concept for this novel approach.

“Our current efforts focus on enhancing what we have already achieved to establish a fully functioning nuclear fusion reactor capable of directly generating electric power.”