nuclear fusion

nuclear fusion (usually uncountable, plural nuclear fusions)

1. (nuclear physics) The combining of the nuclei of small atoms to form the nuclei of larger ones, with a resulting release of large quantities of energy; the process that makes the sun shine, and hydrogen bombs explode.
   • 2023 January 3, Adam Frank, “The Universe Is More in Our Hands Than Ever Before”, in The Atlantic‎:

     The emergence of this new large-scale lab-based astrophysics was an unanticipated side effect of a much broader, more fraught, and now quite in-the-news scientific journey: the quest for nuclear fusion.

• nuclear fission