[extropy-chat] A ROOM-TEMPERATURE PALM-SIZED NUCLEAR FUSION DEVICE

[Dirk Bruere]

John K Clark wrote:

> PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
> The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
> Number 729 April 27, 2005  by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein
>                                                        PYROFUSION:
> A ROOM-TEMPERATURE, PALM-SIZED NUCLEAR FUSION DEVICE has
> been reported by a UCLA collaboration, potentially leading to new
> kinds of fusion devices and other novel applications such as
> microthrusters for MEMS spaceships.  The key component of the UCLA
> device is a pyroelectric crystal, a class of materials that includes
> lithium niobate, an inexpensive solid that is used to filter signals
> in cell phones.  When heated a pyroelectric crystal polarizes
> charge, segregating a significant amount of electric charge near a
> surface, leading to a very large electric field there.  In turn,
> this effect can accelerate electrons to relatively high (keV)
> energies (see Update 564,
> http://www.aip.org/pnu/2001/split/564-2.html).


Nice, but nowhere as good as a Farnsworth fusor.

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-
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http://www.theconsensus.org



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