用于发展聚变能的实验总是会使用专门的装置，这些装置可以根据他们使用的聚变原理和燃料自持方式来进行区分。

主要区分为磁约束和惯性约束两种。在磁约束中，热等离子体膨胀的趋势被等离子体中的电流和外部线圈产生的磁场之间的洛伦兹力抵消。粒子密度范围趋向于-，线性尺寸范围为0.1 m至10m。 粒子和能量约束时间在从几毫秒到超过一秒的范围内，但是配置本身通常通过输入粒子、能量和电流来维持数倍或数千倍的时间。一些理论能够无限期地维持等离子体。

磁约束

环形器 
环形器可以是轴对称的，例如托卡马克和，也可以是不对称的，比如仿星器。通过放弃环形对称性而获得的额外的自由度可能最终可以产生更好的约束，但工程、理论和实验诊断上的成本十分复杂。仿星器通常具有周期性，例如五倍的旋转对称。反场箍缩，尽管具有一些理论上的优势，例如低磁场线圈，还没有证明是成功的。

托卡马克

仿星器

RFX (Reversed-Field eXperiment), Consorzio RFX, Padova, Italy
 MST (Madison Symmetric Torus), 威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校, United States
 T2R, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
 TPE-RX, AIST, Tsukuba, Japan
 KTX (Keda Torus eXperiment) in China (since 2015)

磁镜 
 Baseball I/Baseball II, 劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室，利弗莫尔，加利福尼亚州。
 , 劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室，利弗莫尔，加利福尼亚州。
 , 劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室，利弗莫尔, 加利福尼亚州。
 , , 阿卡杰姆戈罗多克，俄罗斯。



C-2 
 C-2U Tri Alpha Energy
 C-3 (under construction?) Tri Alpha Energy
 LSX, 华盛顿大学
 IPA, 华盛顿大学
 HF, 华盛顿大学
 IPA-HF, 华盛顿大学

Open field lines

Plasma pinch 
 Trisops - 2 facing theta-pinch guns

懸浮偶極 
 懸浮偶極 (LDX), MIT/哥伦比亚大学, United States

惯性约束

激光驱动

当前或正在建设的实验设施

固态激光器 
 National Ignition Facility (NIF) at LLNL in California, US
 Laser Mégajoule of the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique in Bordeaux, France (under construction)
 OMEGA EL Laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, Rochester, US
 Gekko XII at the Institute for Laser Engineering in Osaka, Japan
 ISKRA-4 and ISKRA-5 Lasers at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center VNIIEF
 Pharos laser, 2 beam 1 kJ/pulse (IR) Nd:Glass laser at the Naval Research Laboratories
 Vulcan laser at the central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, 2.6 kJ/pulse (IR) Nd:glass laser
 Trident laser,  at LANL; 3 beams total; 2 x 400 J beams, 100 ps – 1 us; 1 beam ~100 J, 600 fs – 2 ns.

气体激光器 
 NIKE laser at the Naval Research Laboratories, Krypton Fluoride gas laser
 PALS, formerly the "Asterix IV", at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 1 kJ max. output iodine laser at 1.315 micrometre fundamental wavelength

已拆除实验设施

固态激光器 
 4 pi laser built during the mid 1960s at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
 Long path laser built at LLNL in 1972
 The two beam Janus laser built at LLNL in 1975
 The two beam Cyclops laser built at LLNL in 1975
 The two beam Argus laser built at LLNL in 1976
 The 20 beam Shiva laser built at LLNL in 1977
 24 beam OMEGA laser completed in 1980 at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics
 The 10 beam Nova laser (dismantled) at LLNL. (First shot taken, December 1984 – final shot taken and dismantled in 1999)

气体激光器 
 "Single Beam System" or simply "67" after the building number it was housed in, a 1 kJ carbon dioxide laser at Los Alamos National Laboratory
 Gemini laser, 2 beams, 2.5 kJ carbon dioxide laser at LANL
 Helios laser, 8 beam, ~10 kJ carbon dioxide laser at LANL — Media at Wikimedia Commons
 Antares laser at LANL. (40 kJ CO2 laser, largest ever built, production of hot electrons in target plasma due to long wavelength of laser resulted in poor laser/plasma energy coupling)
 Aurora laser 96 beam 1.3 kJ total krypton fluoride (KrF) laser at LANL
 Sprite laser few joules/pulse laser at the Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Z-箍缩 
 Z Pulsed Power Facility
 ZEBRA device at the University of Nevada's Nevada Terawatt Facility
 Saturn accelerator at Sandia National Laboratory
 MAGPIE at Imperial College London
 COBRA at Cornell University
 PULSOTRON

惯性静电约束 
 Fusor
 Polywell

磁化靶聚变 
 FRX-L
 FRCHX
 General Fusion - under development
 LINUS project

参考资料

聚变能
多語言連結模板參數編號