The idea was picked up by Robert Bussard in 1983. His 1989 patent application cited Lavrentiev, although in 2006 he appears to claim to have (re)discovered the idea independently. Research was funded first by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency beginning in 1987 and later by DARPA. This funding resulted in a machine known as the high energy power source (HEPS) experiment. It was built by Directed Technologies Inc. This machine was a large (1.9 m across) machine, with the rings outside the vacuum chamber. This machine performed poorly because the magnetic fields sent electrons into the walls, driving up conduction losses. These losses were attributed to poor electron injection. The US Navy began providing low-level funding to the project in 1992. Krall published results in 1994. Bussard, who had been an advocate for Tokamak research, turned to advocate for this concept, so that the idea became associated with his name. In 1995 he sent a letter to the US Congress stating that he had only supported Tokamaks in order to get fusion research sponsored by the government, but he now believed that there were better alternatives. Bussard founded Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation, Inc. (aka EMC2) in 1985 and after the HEPS program ended, the company continued its research. Successive machines were made, evolving from WB-1 to WB-8. The company won an SBIR I grant in 1992–93 and an SBIR II grant in 1994–95, both from the US Navy. In 1993, it received a grant from the Electric Power Research Institute. In 1994, The company received small grants from NASA and LANL. Starting in 1999, the company was primarily funded by the US Navy. WB-1 had six conventional magnets in a cube. This device was 10 cm across. WB-2 used coils of wires to generate the magnetic field. Each electromagnet had a square cross section that created problems. The magnetic fields drove electrons into the metal rings, raising conduction losses and electron trapping. This design also suffered from "funny cusp" losses at the joints between magnets. WB-6 attempted to address these problems, by using circular rings and spacing further apart. The next device, PXL-1, was built in 1996 and 1997. This machine was 26 cm across and used flatter rings to generate the field. From 1998 to 2005 the company built a succession of six machines: WB-3, MPG-1,2, WB-4, PZLx-1, MPG-4 and WB-5.