用於發展聚變能的實驗總是會使用專門的裝置，這些裝置可以根據他們使用的聚變原理和燃料自持方式來進行區分。

主要區分為磁約束和慣性約束兩種。在磁約束中，熱電漿體膨脹的趨勢被電漿體中的電流和外部線圈產生的磁場之間的洛倫茲力抵消。粒子密度範圍趨向於 1018-1022 m−3，線性尺寸範圍為 0.1 m 至 10m。 粒子和能量約束時間在從幾毫秒到超過一秒的範圍內，但是配置本身通常通過輸入粒子、能量和電流來維持數倍或數千倍的時間。一些理論能夠無限期地維持電漿體。



磁約束

環形器

環形器可以是軸對稱的，例如托卡馬克和反場箍縮，也可以是不對稱的，比如仿星器。通過放棄環形對稱性而獲得的額外的自由度可能最終可以產生更好的約束，但工程、理論和實驗診斷上的成本十分複雜。仿星器通常具有周期性，例如五倍的旋轉對稱。反場箍縮，儘管具有一些理論上的優勢，例如低磁場線圈，還沒有證明是成功的。

托卡馬克

仿星器

反場箍縮


* RFX (Reversed-Field eXperiment), Consorzio RFX, Padova, Italy

* MST (Madison Symmetric Torus), 威斯康星大學麥迪遜分校，United States

* T2R, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

* TPE-RX, AIST, Tsukuba, Japan

* KTX (Keda Torus eXperiment) in China (since 2015)

磁鏡


* Baseball I/Baseball II, 勞倫斯利弗莫爾國家實驗室，利弗莫爾，加利福尼亞州。

* TMX, TMX, 勞倫斯利弗莫爾國家實驗室，利弗莫爾，加利福尼亞州。

* MFTF, 勞倫斯利弗莫爾國家實驗室，利弗莫爾，加利福尼亞州。

* Gas Dynamic Trap, Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, 阿卡傑姆戈羅多克，俄羅斯。

球形馬克


* Template:Sustained Spheromak Physics Experiment

場反向位形


* C-2 Tri Alpha EnergyTri\_Alpha\_Energy

* C-2U Tri Alpha Energy

* C-3 (under construction?) Tri Alpha Energy

* LSX, 華盛頓大學

* IPA, 華盛頓大學

* HF, 華盛頓大學

* IPA-HF, 華盛頓大學

Open field lines

Plasma pinch


* Trisops - 2 facing theta-pinch guns

懸浮偶極


* 懸浮偶極 (LDX), MIT / 哥倫比亞大學，United States



慣性約束

雷射驅動

當前或正在建設的實驗設施

固態雷射器


* 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.

氣體雷射器


* 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

已拆除實驗設施

固態雷射器


* 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)

氣體雷射器


* "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 - 箍縮


* 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



慣性靜電約束


* Fusor

* Polywell



磁化靶聚變


* FRX-L

* FRCHX

* General Fusion - under development

* LINUS project