Coming in from the Cold-- Cold Fusion

[Celebration]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0606/p25s01-stss.html

Scientists have gotten fusion to occur in the laboratory before, but for the most part, they've tried to mimic conditions inside the sun by whipping hydrogen gas up to extreme temperatures or slamming atoms together in particle accelerators. Both of those options require huge energies and gigantic equipment, not the sort of stuff easily available to build a generator. Is there any way of getting protons close enough together for fusion to occur that doesnt require the energy output of a large city to make it happen?

The answer, it turns out, is yes.

Instead of using high temperatures and incredible densities to ram protons together, the scientists at UCLA cleverly used the structure of an unusual crystal.

Crystals are fascinating things; the atoms inside are all lined up in a tightly ordered lattice, which creates the beautiful structure we associate with crystals. Sometimes those orderly atoms create neat side-effects, like piezoelectricity, which is the effect of creating an electrical charge in a crystal by compressing it. Stressing the bonds between the atoms of some crystals causes electrons to build up on one side, creating a charge difference over the body of the crystal. Other crystals do this when you heat or cool them; these are called pyroelectric crystals.

[acmejack]

1. Wow!

Implications are huge.

[phantom power]

2. more or less the same claim made by Pons & Fleischman.

In their case, it was supposedly the surface of the platinum that squeezed nuclei together.

Not that I claim it's impossible. Just sayin...

[aeolian]

7. 'cept this makes more physical sense, and is repeatable.

[phantom power]

8. It's also really "hot fusion", in disguise.

They are using high speed to slam the nuclei together. They are doing it with much smaller equipment, but then they are also only getting tiny amounts of energy out.

It's quite clever, but it's a long, long way from being an industrial power source. My money stays on "big and hot" fusion, when it comes to providing real power to the grid.

[aeolian]

9. Right, the energy is actually there to get over the electric potential

Previous claims have sorta skipped that part


This could be a HUGE tool for studying fusion in a controlled manner, and getting us toward a fusion power source. If this works out, then not only can smaller labs begin studying fusion (without huge, expensive facilities), but experiments could be done to study individual fusion reactions, not just the chaotic balls of plasma that the big labs make. (although, of course, we're gonna need to understand those chaotic balls of plasma, too.)


Advances in fusion science make this nerd happy.

[Igel]

3. A few links.

Gimzewski's lab's site:
http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski /

Including a couple of neat pictures.
http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski/id12.ht...

His link to the Nature abstract:
http://nano.chem.ucla.edu/nature.htm
If you have a subscription to Nature, you can follow his link.

[Orsino]

4. Feeling incredibly optimistic here.

I know a little something about particle physics (bachelor's degree), and I'm aware the results must be independently confirmed. To be useful, there must also be some prospect of generating more energy than the process consumes.

The UCLA doesn't seem to be pulling a Fleischmann/Pons, though. They published before calling press conferences, and have shown a coherent method by which their process works. They even seem to be getting the right results (i.e., particle byproducts).

They does seem to be using the relatively rare deuterium isotope of hydrogen, a nucleus containing a neutron as well as a proton (extra mass/momentum without extra charge to bog things down).

Here we report that gently heating a pyroelectric crystal in a deuterated atmosphere can generate fusion under desktop conditions. The electrostatic field of the crystal is used to generate and accelerate a deuteron beam (> 100 keV and >4 nA), which, upon striking a deuterated target, produces a neutron flux over 400 times the background level. The presence of neutrons from the reaction D + D -->He (820 keV) + n (2.45 MeV) within the target is confirmed by pulse shape analysis and proton recoil spectroscopy. As further evidence for this fusion reaction, we use a novel time-of-flight technique to demonstrate the delayed coincidence between the outgoing alpha-particle and the neutron. Although the reported fusion is not useful in the power-producing sense, we anticipate that the system will find application as a simple palm-sized neutron generator.

If the whole thing's not a prank, we could be seeing the proof-of-concept on a device that might one day save our little experiment in civilization. The researchers show commendable caution, however; they're not claiming anything more useful than a neutron generator.

Cross your fingers.

[qazplm]

5. hmmmm...

this isnt a "di-lithium" crystal is it?


(just kidding, come on someone had to make the joke!)

[Q3JR4]

6. Hehe,

naughty naughty.