Mitchell Swartz writes, > The vacancies of current interest to me are Frenkel defects, > and they can also be induced by high dose rate irradiation, as we have > shown for years.
> There is an article which is pending or just out in Hal Fox's J. New Energy > showing evidence of "lattice quakes" as the early large number of Frenkel defects > collapse in some of our samples. This is most interesting, for several reasons - one being the potential ability to engineer active materials which do not require Pd, or at least do not require as much of it. Certain ceramics seem like they could be good candidates. I found some background info on the web about Frenkel Defects for those like myself who were not up to speed on this. Historically, point defects in crystals were first considered in ionic crystals, but not in metal crystals. The reason was that some known properties of ionic crystals (ion migration at high temperatures) could be understood for the first time in terms of point defects, while no special properties of metals (historically) were in similar need of an explanation, nor were there obvious uses. Frenkel defects are usually distinguished from ionic or Schottky defects, as there is no (or only a negligible) *volume expansion* of the crystal when Frenkel defects are formed. This builds in stress, which could be beneficial for CF. Researchers with a chemical or ceramics background tend to classify all point defects in the category "Schottky" or "Frenkel". In this classification, Frenkel defects do not appear in thermal equilibrium but may be produced by energetic irradiation which transfers sufficient energy to crystal atoms to displace atoms into adjoining interstitial sites while at the same time creating a vacancy. I hope that Mitchell has the time to elaborate a little further on using Frenkel defects and whether or not he sees this leading to alternative (cheaper) active materials for use as an LENR matrix, and what kind of lifetime he sees for such a cathode. I guess (thinking aloud) that an ideal implementation would be the kind of "warm" fusion devices with low-energy accelerator-driven or electrostatically-driven deuterons - which device can both create the needed defects (which are probably fairly transitory) while at the same time provide some or all of the EMF needed to drive the fusion reaction.... Something along the lines of using a solid target in a Farnsworth-type fusor at 20 keV ? Jones
