Room-Temperature, Small-Scale Fusion at UCLA

gnuman99 writes "A UCLA collaboration (Seth Putterman, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski) appear to have developed a fusion device powered by a pyroelectric crystal, a type of crystal used in cell phones to filter signals. When heated, such a crystal produces a large electric charge on its surface. The UCLA researchers placed a lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) pyroelectric crystal so that one side touches a copper disc. A tiny tungsten probe is then placed at the center of the copper disc. When the crystal is subsequently heated, a very large large electric field is produced at the end of the tugsten tip, ~25 billion volts per meter. This field gradient is so high that it strips the electrons from nearby deuterium atoms. The ionized deuterium atoms then accelerated by this field towards a solid target of erbium deuteride (ErD2). They collide with it at such high energies that some fuse with the target. A measurement of almost 900 neutrons per second was observed. This is 400 times the background! Although the amount of energy produced in this initial experiment was miniscule (~1E-8 jules), this technology could be used for things like microthrusters. There are pictures and movies on the UCLA's physics site." Reader richmlpdx adds a link to coverage at MSNBC.

Comments

Takes a lot more energy than it produces

[nokiator]

Going briefly over the available documents on this, it appears that this technique consumes orders of magnitude more energy than it produces. This would preclude energy generation as one of the potential applications, which is usually regarded as the most promising potential application of cold fusion. Most of the other potential applications mentioned in the articles use this as a neutron generator, but there are other well known ways of achieving that...

Re:Takes a lot more energy than it produces

[jmv]

You would be right if this weren't a prototype (it's not like they're selling it). What they demonstrated is that it's possible to do fusion outside of a tokamak (or similar device). From there, you can always try making the thing work at a higher scale, with less energy.

Re:Potential Uses

[cavemanf16]

"While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, the technique could have potential uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles."

And why is it that every new American invention these days has a "potential use" in homeland security? There must be plenty of money wasting away in that crappy program right now if every single scientist talks about it whenever they release new findings. I'm off to begin building my CompuMegaInterCorpHomelandSecurity company now... (I figure with a name like that, how can the VC's NOT trust me with googleplexes of money?!!)

Re:Potential Uses

[(54)T-Dub]

From the MSNBC article:

The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in -- an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

To me this was the most important part of the article and the summary would have benefited for it. The quote shows the reason why this only has limited applications.

Research Value

[knapper_tech]

Even if the technology is found to be unable to produce sufficient amounts of energy to be valuable in that role, it could still be a great platform for studying fusion in the lab, and it could yield useful information for controlling fusion in the large scale research reactors that may eventually lead to scalable, cheap, and abundant energy production.

Re:Potential Uses

[budgenator]

Then students would pursue projects with this in mind, instead of developing with military applications in mind. Highly reliable and easy-to-repair water pumps, improved farming tools constructable from local materials, simple and effective water filtration devices, etc.?

You say that like those aren't military applications, I think perhaps your out of touch with what modern military actualy does. Demonizing anything military is easy, and the people who do it the most are the people who don't realize that it's the military's infrastructure that make most humanitarian relief operations possible. Next time you think somebody needs 10,000 tons of relief supplies ask FedEx what the going rate is, and if they drop it off in a hostile fire zone.

Re:Potential Uses

[Mac Degger]

This is meant as a polite reply, but it will seem harsh. My appologies, but nonetheless:

Read my post. Read up on evolution. I've already agreed with you that agression has been a force in evolution, and in certain parts of the world (large tracts of africa, wherever there is conflict) it still is. In develloped countries it is actually a negative: the violent and aggressive get locked up (and don't make enough money to pay for surgery and other medical attention, further limiting the spread of his genetic heretige).

The guy who invents military applications recieves a steady paycheck, which grants him a small amount of status. The guy who owns the company who employs the aforementioned guy gets all the status, gets to fuck around with a large number of nubile women, and spreads his genetic seed the widest. Same goes for rockstars or rich people. Cynical? Yup....but too true. Geeks do not breed well. We don't contribute too heavily to the genetic pool. There is a big difference between agrression and the capability to think up new means to commit larger forms of aggression. Just look at Bush. He can be aggressive (as long as it isn't physical), but do you see him thinking up a new weapon system? But I bet he could have any Whitehouse intern he wanted.

I have to say I kinda agree with a lot of your post, but I remain convinced that Darwin and Gould will back me up on the way evolution works: it does not promote thinking of science as applied to military application, even though it might select towards application of military force (which is a totally different thing entirely).
Thus forcing kids to think of military applications is an entirely forced-from-above thing to do, not something which is somehow 'genetically enforced'. And it's still a horrible thing to force kids to do, IMNSHO, as it directly canals a childs thought processes into applications of agression. /ditto, but it's still an interesting aside nontheless :).