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Lithium tantalate

 
Lithium Tantalate

 
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Lithium tantalate
 
 
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Lithium tantalate (LiTaO3), is a crystalline solid which possesses unique optical, piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties which make it valuable for non-linear optics, passive infrared sensors such as motion detector
Motion detector

A motion detector is a device that contains a physical mechanism or electronic sensor that quantifies motion that can be either integrated with or connected to other devices that alert the user of the presence of a moving object within the field of view....
s, terahertz generation and detection, surface acoustic wave
Surface acoustic wave

A surface acoustic wave is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elastic , with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate....
 applications, cell phones and possibly pyroelectric nuclear fusion
Pyroelectric fusion

Pyroelectric fusion refers to the technique of using pyroelectricity crystals to generate high strength electrostatic fields to accelerate deuterium ions into a metal hydride target also containing deuterium with sufficient kinetic energy to cause these ions to undergo nuclear fusion....
. Considerable information is available from commercial sources about this crystal.

rding to an April 2005 Nature
Nature (journal)

Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Although most scientific journals are now highly specialized, Nature is one of the few journals, along with other weekly journals such as Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that still publishes original research articles ac...
 article, Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski and Seth Putterman at UCLA applied a large temperature difference to a lithium tantalate crystal producing a large enough charge to generate and accelerate a beam of deuterium nuclei into a deuteriated target resulting in the production of a small flux of helium-3 and neutrons through nuclear fusion without extreme heat or pressure.






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Encyclopedia


Lithium tantalate (LiTaO3), is a crystalline solid which possesses unique optical, piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties which make it valuable for non-linear optics, passive infrared sensors such as motion detector
Motion detector

A motion detector is a device that contains a physical mechanism or electronic sensor that quantifies motion that can be either integrated with or connected to other devices that alert the user of the presence of a moving object within the field of view....
s, terahertz generation and detection, surface acoustic wave
Surface acoustic wave

A surface acoustic wave is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elastic , with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate....
 applications, cell phones and possibly pyroelectric nuclear fusion
Pyroelectric fusion

Pyroelectric fusion refers to the technique of using pyroelectricity crystals to generate high strength electrostatic fields to accelerate deuterium ions into a metal hydride target also containing deuterium with sufficient kinetic energy to cause these ions to undergo nuclear fusion....
. Considerable information is available from commercial sources about this crystal.

Pyroelectric fusion

According to an April 2005 Nature
Nature (journal)

Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Although most scientific journals are now highly specialized, Nature is one of the few journals, along with other weekly journals such as Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that still publishes original research articles ac...
 article, Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski and Seth Putterman at UCLA applied a large temperature difference to a lithium tantalate crystal producing a large enough charge to generate and accelerate a beam of deuterium nuclei into a deuteriated target resulting in the production of a small flux of helium-3 and neutrons through nuclear fusion without extreme heat or pressure. Their results have been replicated.

It is unlikely to be useful for electricity generation since the energy required to produce the fusion reactions exceeded the energy produced by them. It is thought that the technique might be useful for small neutron generators, especially if the deuterium beam is replaced by a tritium one. Comparing this with the electrostatic containment of ionic plasma to achieve fusion in a "fusor
Fusor

The Farnsworth?Hirsch Fusor, or simply fusor, is an apparatus Invention by Philo T. Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion. It has also been developed in various incarnations by researchers including Elmore, Tuck, and Watson, and more lately by George Miley and Robert W....
" or other IEC
Inertial electrostatic confinement

Inertial electrostatic confinement is a concept for retaining a Plasma using an electrostatic field. The field accelerates charged particles radially inward, usually in a spherical but sometimes in a cylindrical geometry....
, this method focuses electrical acceleration to a much smaller non-ionized deuterium
Deuterium

Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6500 of hydrogen ....
 target without heat.

Further reading

  • Physics Web, 27 April, 2005