[ RadSafe ] FW: Crystal fusion!

[John Jacobus]

I think that the idea is that it would be used instead
of a Am-Be source for neutron generation in guages. 
It should be smaller than a D-T generator.

--- A  Karam <paksbi at rit.edu> wrote:

> A science writer colleague sent this to me.  It
> sounds legitimate - not
> at all like the "cold fusion" fiasco in the late
> 1980s.  Interestingly,
> this story also notes the possibility of using this
> device in place of
> radioactive sources for some applications.  Wouldn't
> it be nice to have
> a pocket-sized device to generate radiation as, say,
> a gauge or well
> logging source, instead of having to use radioactive
> materials?
> 
> Andy
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> Crystal creates table-top fusion
> Mark Peplow
> It won't solve our energy crisis, but could help
> treat cancer.
> 
> 
> A piece of plastic (2.5cm across) loaded with
> deuterium atoms glows blue
> where an incoming beam of deuterium triggers fusion.
> (c) Seth Putterman, UCLA
> At first, it sounds like the biggest science story
> of the century:
> scientists have invented a desktop fusion machine.
> 
> If nuclear fusion can be made to happen at room
> temperatures and
> pressures in an average lab, then one might think
> the world's energy
> crisis is over. But the inventors of the device
> stress that their gadget
> cannot generate power at all, because it does not
> support a
> self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction. Instead,
> they say, it has a
> whole host of other applications, from treating
> cancer to powering
> spacecraft.
> 
> The inventors are led by Seth Putterman, a physicist
> from the University
> of California, Los Angeles. Putterman is known for
> debunking claims of
> 'bubble fusion' and 'cold fusion' that promised
> revolutionary advances
> in energy production.
> 
> His toaster-sized device, detailed in this week's
> Nature1, relies on a
> pyroelectric crystal of lithium tantalate, which
> produces a strong
> electric field when heated to room temperature from
> freezing. This field
> is focused until it is powerful enough to accelerate
> a beam of deuterium
> ions (proton-neutron pairs) to about 1% of the speed
> of light.
> 
> When these ions hit a target containing deuterium
> nuclei, they fuse to
> form helium-3, a combination of two protons and a
> neutron. The process
> emits about 1,000 neutrons a second, and by allowing
> the crystal to heat
> up slowly, fusion can be sustained for as long as
> eight hours.
> 
> Low-power wonder
> 
> This type of fusion is already used in commercially
> available
> instruments that determine the chemical composition
> of materials at a
> distance. Such devices blast neutrons down to the
> bottom of oil wells,
> for example, to determine the quality of oil. They
> are also used at
> airports to study in detail the contents of
> suspicious luggage.
> 
> However, such applications currently require bulky,
> expensive particle
> accelerators with large electricity supplies.
> Replacing those with a
> small crystal is a big step. "The amazing thing is
> that the energy
> fields of a crystal can be used without plugging it
> in to a power
> station," says Putterman.
> 
> "They've built a really neat little accelerator,"
> agrees Mike Saltmarsh,
> a nuclear physicist formerly at Oak Ridge National
> Laboratory,
> Tennessee.
> 
> It will probably make its first big splash in labs
> looking for an easy
> neutron source. But, predicts Putterman, "there will
> be a lot of
> spin-offs from this technology".
> 
> Radiation on tap
> 
> "Everyone will be talking about the fusion, but this
> crystal can also
> give off X-rays as it accelerates electrons," says
> Putterman. This
> effectively creates a tiny radioactive source that
> can be turned on and
> off at will. Such a device could one day be used to
> target radiation at
> cancerous cells: a smaller version could be injected
> into the body and
> directed towards a tumour before being switched on.
> In contrast, today's
> radiation therapies tend to blast healthy cells
> along with cancerous
> ones.
> 
> Putterman also thinks that rocket propulsion could
> benefit. Space probes
> such as the European Space Agency's SMART-1, which
> recently arrived at
> the Moon, already use ion engines that eject a
> stream of charged xenon
> gas to produce a gentle forward thrust. The
> pyroelectric accelerator
> could produce a similar beam of ions moving at much
> greater speed, which
> would increase the thrust considerably, says
> Putterman.
> 
> The team is now trying to boost the number of
> neutrons generated by the
> machine, as well as miniaturizing the device even
> further.
> 
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+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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