Proven Technology
Our headquarters are home to our two primary experimental drivers which enable us to test and refine our technology in real time. Machine 3 is one of Europe's largest pulsed power facilities and the 'Big Friendly Gun' (a two-stage light-gas gun) is biggest of its kind in the UK.
Machine 3
The largest pulsed power facility in Europe. Designed and built by First Light in 18 months at a capital cost of £3.6m, M3 is one of the largest pulsed power facilities in the world and the largest in Europe. It is the only machine of this type uniquely dedicated to fusion research. Using extreme electromagnetic forces, it is primarily employed to launch projectiles at the hypervelocity required to test our fusion targets.
Peak Current
Impact Speed
Projectile Acceleration
M3 specifications
Machine 3 resides within a 16 x 16 x 5 m enclosure, with additional electromagnetically shielded rooms for ancillary equipment. It features a parallel plate architecture with voltage doubling. The device weighs 40 t, and uses 15 km of cabling, 300 diagnostic probes and 21,000 m2 of thin film insulation. During shot campaigns M3 can be fired once every other day.
| Rated load voltage | 200 kV (2.5 MJ) |
| Typical operating load voltage |
140 kV (1.22 MJ) |
| Inductance |
12.5 nH |
| Resistance | 0.1 mΩ |
| Peak current discharge time | < 2 us |
| Vacuum chamber diameter |
1.7 m |
| Capacitors | 192 x 2.6 uF |
| Ball array spark gap switches | 96 |
The biggest two-stage light-gas gun in the UK
First Light commissioned Physics Applications Inc, a company that specialises in two-stage light-gas guns, to design the BFG on our specifications. The BFG was designed, built and commissioned in 10 months at a capital cost of £1.1m and it is the highest energy projectile launcher in the UK. It delivers a 38 mm metal-tipped projectile to our target vacuum chamber with a high degree of repeatability. This allows us to explore a complementary area of the parameter space to Machine 3 for our fusion research.
Impact pressure
Maximum impact velocity
Hydrogen pressure accelerating the projectile
BFG specifications
The BFG, commissioned in April 2021, uses gun powder to launch a plastic piston in the first stage. This piston compresses hydrogen gas to 10,000 times atmospheric pressure, which launches the second stage projectile. When the projectile enters a large, armoured vacuum chamber, it impacts our targets. Our diagnostics measure the impact at very-high time resolution.
| Projectile size (dia x l) | 38 x 39 mm |
| Projectile mass | < 100 g |
| Max projectile velocity | 7 km/s |
| Typical projectile velocity | 6.5 km/s |
| Mass of gun powder | 3 kg |
| Piston velocity | 1 km/s |
| Projectile energy efficiency | 13.3 % |