Home · Tandem Mirror vs Tokamak
Comparison

Tandem mirror vs tokamak: what's the difference?

Tokamaks confine plasma in a ring; tandem mirrors confine it in a straight line between magnetic plugs. Kronos uses both — a spherical tokamak to breed the fuel, and a tandem mirror to burn it.

See the architecture →Run the physics →
Side by side

Two geometries, two jobs.

Tokamak
A magnetic ring
  • Toroidal (doughnut) plasma confined by a ring of magnets
  • The most-studied confinement approach (ITER, SPARC)
  • Excellent confinement; complex geometry and disruptions to manage
  • Kronos uses a compact spherical tokamak (HYPERION) to breed fuel
Kronos
A linear machine
  • Straight central cell between high-field magnetic plugs
  • No toroidal current, so no tokamak-style disruptions
  • Open ends handled by direct energy conversion — no steam
  • Kronos uses a tandem mirror (Aegis, MetroVolt) to burn D–³He

Kronos doesn't pick one — it uses each where it's strongest: the tokamak breeds, the mirror burns.

Verify it yourself

Open by design.

Live simulation
Run the engines
Open →
Open data
Zenodo · CC BY 4.0
Open →
How it works
The two machines
Open →
Learn (Fusion 101)
Go deeper
Open →
Why a mirror, not a tokamak →The architecture →HYPERION →
Go deeper

See how the two connect.

The full breeder-to-burner architecture, in plain terms.

See the architecture →
Conceptual design and simulation study; the integrated Kronos machines are not yet built, and certain results are requirement-class. No financial figures are published on this site.