IEC Fusion

Although most funding of fusion research has been focused on tokamak and laser implosion devices, new developments in IEC (inertial electrostatic confinement) fusion using quasi-spherical magnetic fields may offer an important breakthrough.

The following document presents Dr. Robert Bussard's IEC fusion research at EMC2 over the past 17 years, as given at a Google Tech Talk lecture.
The video of this talk, from which this document was based, can be found at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

Dr. Bussard also gave this talk at Yahoo! on April 10, 2007. It is similar to the Google talk, except he spoke more about the impact on the world towards the end of the talk. A video of this talk is only available internally to Yahoo! employees.

The paper mentioned in the above video and article that describes his research in more detail can be found at:

The advantages of IEC fusion over tokamaks and other alternatives is detailed in the following article. This article was reformatted and updated in July 2007 with color pdf illustrations:

IEC Fusion Physics


Detailed physics of IEC fusion are detailed in the following papers. These articles were reformatted and updated in July and August 2007 with color pdf illustrations:


IEC Fusion and Spaceflight

Dr. Bussard has written several papers concerning the usage of IEC fusion in space flight. These articles were updated in May-August 2007 by reformatting and adding color pdf illustrations:


IEC Fusion Publicity


Mention of IEC fusion research was made in the following articles:

Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation Inertial-Electrodynamic Fusion (IEF) Device was the winner of the 2006 Outstanding Technology of the Year Award by the International Academy of Science

A site with numerous links to additional information on IEC fusion has been provided by Joe Strout at:


Information on EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation, a charitable research and development organization with a focus on fusion can be found at:


    EMC2 Reports

    Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation reports from 1990 and 1991 relating to aspects of IEC Fusion are:

    There are over 100 Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation subsequent papers and final reports on its IEC fusion research that remain classified as per the US Navy publishing embargo. However, a report on the WB-6 can be found here:



    Tom Ligon Articles

    Tom Ligon has written articles and presentations on IEC fusion and its applications:


    Dr. Bussard died at age 79 on October 6, 2007 of cancer. In his memory, here are some     articles that he wrote over his career.