• Xcimer will hire 13 summer interns for the 12-week program, with smaller cohorts in spring and fall. 

• All positions are paid and include housing and relocation stipends for those who live outside the Denver area.

• The internships are part of a bigger staffing push at Xcimer, which recently expanded its leadership team, hired sector veterans, and formed a world-class board of advisers.

 

Denver, CO (Nov. 17, 2025) – Xcimer Energy is now accepting applications for its 2026 internship program, offering students hands-on experience in fusion energy research and engineering. 

The leading inertial fusion energy company will keep the intern application process open through the end of 2025. The company plans to bring on 13 summer interns for 12 weeks, with smaller cohorts joining in spring and fall. All positions are paid and include housing and relocation stipends for students who live outside the Denver area. 

Interns work alongside Xcimer scientists and engineers on projects spanning nuclear engineering, pulsed power, mechanical design and analysis, materials science, computation and theory, experimental physics, optical design, and manufacturing. The program includes mentorship, group outings, and team field trips, as well as lunches provided at the company’s Denver headquarters.

“Interns at Xcimer work on real challenges and develop solutions crucial to the success of our company,” said Dan Bauer, head of talent at Xcimer Energy. “They contribute to experiments, data analysis, and engineering design—not just observe.”

On average, half of Xcimer’s summer interns return to the company in full-time roles or for additional internships in subsequent summers. Applicants must be enrolled students or recent graduates accepted into a master’s or Ph.D. program in physics, engineering, or related fields.

Applications and details are available at www.xcimer.energy/internships.

Advancing and commercializing America’s lead in fusion

In December 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab achieved scientific breakeven from fusion for the first time. NIF used laser-driven inertial confinement to produce more energy from fusion than the laser energy needed to compress, heat and ignite a small capsule of fusion fuel – a major milestone. 

NIF confirmed that laser inertial fusion was the only fusion approach experimentally demonstrated to exceed scientific breakeven – but the $5 billion program was never meant to scale to commercial power generation. 

Founded in 2022, Xcimer is the first and only for-profit company purpose-built to commercialize and accelerate America’s leadership in laser inertial fusion. Founded by MIT roommates Conner Galloway and Alexander Valys, Xcimer takes the plasma physics and fusion confinement concept successfully demonstrated at NIF – and couples it with a lower-cost, higher-energy laser system that can scale to commercial application. Xcimer is also advancing the laser-enabled defense technology developed in America’s premier national security facilities. 

Because the US government has already validated the science behind laser inertial fusion, Xcimer focuses on execution of commercial plans. In early 2025, Xcimer completed its Long Pulse Kinetics Platform, the world’s first electron-beam-pumped excimer laser built in the private sector, and the laser of its type built anywhere in the world in the past 20 years. It’s the first key component of Xcimer’s prototype laser system, code-named Phoenix, expected to be complete in 2026. 

Compared to other fusion companies, experts agree that Xcimer has superior long-term economics due to the decoupled nature of the subsystems, higher fuel burnup fraction, and ability to directly protect the first structural wall with the molten salt flow so that it can last the entire lifetime of a power plant. Investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, LowerCarbon Capital, and Hedosophia, and the U.S. Department of Energy selected Xcimer for funding in its Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.

 

Leading inertial fusion company accelerates growth 

The 2026 internship program comes as Xcimer accelerates hiring across disciplines. 

Last month, energy industry veteran Brian Boggs joined in an all-new role as Head of Strategic Development. Earlier this year, semiconductor scale-up pioneer Dr. Silvia De Dea joined in an all-new role of Head of Materials and Process Engineering. De Dea played a crucial role at Cymer/ASML, one of the most pivotal semiconductor companies globally, by helping to build the most complex machines humans have made.

The company also launched an industry-leading Science and Technology Advisory Board to review and advise on the company’s technical progress, technology, and roadmap for deployment of inertial fusion power plants. The board includes 10 experts with domain expertise in fusion, engineering, pulsed power, laser physics, nuclear technologies and adjacent fields. Mike Campbell, former Associate Director for Lasers at LLNL and key originator for the National Ignition Facility and Director of the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, serves as Chairman.

Xcimer’s goal for 2030 is to complete the construction of Vulcan, its next-generation facility that will achieve the highest laser energy in the world, up to 12 MJ, using the largest laser amplifiers ever built. Vulcan is expected to achieve engineering breakeven from fusion for the first time. Xcimer’s roadmap includes putting the first inertial fusion power plants delivering electricity to the grid as soon as the mid-2030s.

 

About Xcimer Energy Inc.

Xcimer is an inertial fusion company combining novel laser technology with proven science to achieve commercial deployment of fusion energy. Its approach to inertial fusion holds the best prospect for long-term economic viability. Founded in 2022 and based in Denver, Colorado, Xcimer is backed by the world’s leading climate tech investors and has been selected for funding by the U.S. Department of Energy. Its mission is to develop a source of unlimited, clean, safe and reliable energy to power the future. To learn more, visit https://xcimer.energy/. 

 

Contact:

Xcimer media relations team:

media@xcimer.energy

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