Horace Heffner wrote:
On Nov 9, 2007, at 6:28 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
See:
Storms, E. and B. Scanlan. Radiation Produced By Glow Discharge In
Deuterium. in 8th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen /
Deuterium Loaded Metals. 2007. Sicily, Italy.
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEradiationp.pdf
Apparently, a variety of nuclear reactions can be initiated on or in a
solid provided the "right" conditions, i.e. NAE, are present. The
question is, what is the universal condition that is required and what
is the underlying mechanism? So far, none of the proposed theories
being applied to CF have answered this question. Each theory can only be
applied to a small subset of conditions being shown to produce the
reactions. I would hope that clever people who are trying to explain CF
would stop wasting their time and start looking at all aspects of the
real world. I throw out this challenge in the hope that someone will
make the effort.
Thanks, Horace, for describing this very interesting work. Kamada was
obviously not initiating the reaction we are seeing, but the mechanism
is probably the same. The question is, which of the many conditions that
are being applied is actually important and is essential to making the
nuclear reactions occur?
Ed
Some speculation follows.
This experiment is vaguely reminiscent of the early Kamada et al
experiments, which showed a dependency on flux, i.e. current density,
and which were also highly reproducible. It is unfortunate the
implantation and electron beam energies Kamada used were not
substantially reduced so as to see the effect of shallow implantation.
It is of interest the clear but not noted involvement of oxygen in the
Kamada experiments due to the fact an oxide layer exists on the surface
of aluminum. Kamada gives a key electron flux as 1x10^19
electrons/(cm^2*s) for generating excess heat, which I calculate to be a
bout 1.6 A/cm^2. Interestingly, he obtained similar results with H vs D
for nuclear events, but excess heat only for D. His control for the
nuclear events experiment was therefore electron bombardment of a
non-loaded aluminum target. The control for the excess heat experiment
was H loading vs D loading.
The interesting thing about the Kamada experiments is the separation of
the effects of loading vs electron flux. Though the energy levels
differ considerably, it is difficult to not speculate that the Kamada
energy levels were not critical, that the critical electron kinetic
energy might be well below 1000V, and that the excess electron energy
simply, by electron-electron collision, resulted in a lower energy and
higher flux at depth, and would be unnecessary for a shallow depth
target. This then leads to the prospect of use of high current reverse
polarity (cathode momentarily becomes anode) pulses to generate excess
heat in the continually and superficially loaded oxygen containing
cathode. Such an approach might avoid the need for special surface
deformations which change the local flux. Kamada observed metal
melting in selected spots in about 10 seconds of electron flux. Use of
fast high current density pulses of 10 A/cm^2 or more, an order of
magnitude larger at the surface, interlaced with H/D loading at opposite
polarity, might make such excess heat processes more uniform and less
destructive on average.
A summary of the referenced Kamada experiments follows.
The 1992 (Kamada) results showed 1.3 MeV or greater 4He (about 80 percent)
and 0.4 MeV or greater P (about 20 percent) tracks using Al loaded with
*either* H or D. The electron beam energy used was 200 and 400 keV. H3+
or D3+ ions were implanted with an energy of 90 keV into Al films. The
implantation was done at a fluence of 10^17 (H+ or D+)/cm^2 using a
Cockcroft Walton type accelerator. The Al foil used would pass 200 keV
electrons. It was bombarded in a HITACHI HU-500 with a beam current of 300
to 400 nA with a beam size of roughly 4x10^-5 cm^2, or (4-6)x10^16 e/cm^2/s
flux electron beam. The area the beam passedthrough was roughly 2x10^-3
cm^2. Total bombarding time was 40 m. The Al target was a 5 mm dia. disk 1
mm thick, but chemically thinned. The particle detectors were 10 mm x 15
mm x 1 mm CR-39 polymer plastic detectors supplied by Tokuyama Soda Co.
Ltd. Great care was taken to avoid radon gas exposure. Detectors were set
horizontally on either side of the beam 20 mm above the target and two were
set vertically one above the other 20 mm to the side of the target but
starting at the elevation of the target and going upward (beam source
upward from target). The detectors were etched with 6N KOH at 70 deg. C for
2 h. at a rate of 2.7 um/h. Energies and species were determined by
comparison of traces by optical microscope with traces of known origin.
Traces on the backsides of the detectors were found to be at background
level. Background was determined by runing the experiment with Al films
not loaded with H or D. Four succesive repititions of the experiment at
the 200 keV level were run to confirm the reproducibiliy of the experiment.
There was a roughly 100 count above background in each detector, or 1340
total estimated per run for the H-H reaction. A slightly higher rate was
indicated for the D-D reaction. This is a rate of 5x10-15 events per
electron, or 2x10^14 electrons per event. However, the fusion events per
hydrogen pair in the target is 2.8x10^-12 events/H-H pair. The events per
collision based on the stimulation energy was calculated to be 10-12 to
10-26 times less than the observed events.
The 1996 results (Kamada, Kinoshita, Takahashi) involved similar
proceedures but bombardment was at 175 keV using a TEM which
simulataneously was used for taking images of the target. Transformed
(melted) regions with linear dimensions of about 100 nm were observed that
indicated heat evolvement of 160 MeV for each transformed region. The
(energy evolved) / (beam energy) for each region is about 10^5.
Implantation of H was done at 25 keV to a depth of about 100 nm. at a
fluence of 5x10^17 H+/cm^2. Bubbles of "molecular coagulations" of H were
formed at pressures of 7 GPa. At a depth of 60 nm H density was measured
by ERD to be 2x10^22 atoms/cm^3. Immediately after implantation molecular
density was 1x10^22 mol./cm^3, Molar volume was 60 cm^3/mol and pressure
54.5 MPa. The targets were 5 mm dia 0.1mm thick polished using a TENUPOLE
chemical polishing machine to a thickness of 1 uM over an area of 1 mm and
a small hole of 0.1 mm dia. in the central part. A HITACHI H-700 TEM was
used. The beam was 50 nA on an area of about 1 um dia. giving flux of
4x10^19 e/(cm^2*s). The area is first examined with the beam not fully
focused and the spots are not there. The beam is focused and the spots
appear (photographed) within about 10 s. for D2, not at all with H2. The
experiment was repeated over 30 times!. To reliably reproduce the result
two conditions must be met: (1) The microstructure must be optimum, meaning
there must be a minimum of tunnel structures connecting the implanted
bubbles. (This is insured by limiting the fluence of the implanting beam
to 5x10^17 H+/cm^2.) (2) The intensity of the electron beam must be roughly
1x10^19 electrons/(cm^2*s).
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
