muon-catalyzed-fusion
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Ara Knaian
Ara Knaian is an MIT-trained electrical engineer and inventor on more than 36 U.S. patents who now runs Acceleron Fusion, a Cambridge company chasing energy from muon-catalyzed fusion - a route that runs closer to 1,000 degrees C instead of the 100-million-degree plasmas everyone else fights. Before fusion he co-founded the product-design firm NK Labs, architected Google's modular Project Ara phone, tuned the drive waveforms behind Amazon's Kindle, and built the Milli-Motein, a self-folding robot chain at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. Acceleron raised a $24M Series A led by Lowercarbon Capital and Collaborative Fund and logged over 100 hours of continuous fusion at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.
Acceleron Fusion, Inc.
Acceleron Fusion is a Cambridge, Massachusetts deep-tech company reviving muon-catalyzed fusion, a phenomenon first observed in the 1950s, as a path to abundant clean energy. Instead of confining a 100-million-degree plasma, Acceleron fires a beam of muons - subatomic particles roughly 200 times heavier than electrons - at highly compressed deuterium-tritium fuel, triggering fusion at temperatures closer to 500-1,000 C. Founded in 2023 by NK Labs veterans Ara Knaian and Seth Newburg and backed by a $24M Series A from Lowercarbon Capital and Collaborative Fund, the company is building two core technologies: a high-efficiency muon source and a high-density fusion cell, with the goal of a fusion power plant that beats natural gas on cost.