[02 / DEVICE]
The device is a sealed cell of two powders, metal grains loaded with deuterium and crystal grains that make charge when squeezed, shaken so hard that the grains jam and every squeezed crystal throws deuterons across a gap a few atoms wide.
Every mechanism is in the published record. The program combines them in one device.
[Illustrative image]
[02.1 · HOW IT WORKS]
Scroll through the mechanism. It starts at the scale of grains a few micrometers across and ends inside one contact, a billionth of a meter wide.
[01/05] The mix
Metal grains soaked with deuterium (heavy hydrogen) are mixed with crystal grains that make electric charge when squeezed: the same effect that sparks a gas-grill lighter. The grains sit in a deuterated oil or glycerol, or in a sealed dry bed.
[02/05] The jam
A dense suspension behaves like cornstarch in water: sheared fast, it stiffens. Grains press into force chains that carry nearly all the load. A 24 kHz sonotrode builds and breaks those chains in bursts, so contacts are hit again and again.
[03/05] The charge
Where a piezo grain is pressed against a hydride grain, contact stress becomes bound charge on the crystal face. How much depends on the crystal's charge coefficient, d33, which is why the program compares strong and weak crystals in the same cell.
[04/05] The throw
A gap a few atoms wide turns modest charge into an enormous field. A deuteron crossing it picks up energy in the range where metal targets have shown fusion yields. Crystals have done this before: a heated lithium tantalate crystal with a sharp tip drove deuterons to fusion energies (Naranjo et al., Nature 2005; reproduced in PRL 2006).
[05/05] The lever
Two deuterons repel each other; to fuse they must tunnel through that electric wall. In a metal, the sea of free electrons partly cancels the repulsion (electron screening), so the wall is thinner and the rate climbs steeply, most of all at low energy.
Cluster 05 screening Cluster 07 plateau
The mechanism behind each step is in the published record. Putting them together in one powder is what this program tests.
[02.2 · THE COMPOSITION MATRIX]
Four metals crossed with four crystals, all in one cell geometry. Two hydrides are cheap and dense, one is the benchmark, one carries ordinary hydrogen. Two crystals are strong, two are about a hundred times weaker. Choose a cell to see what it is for.
TiD2 × PZT-5H ACTIVE
A cheap, dense deuteron host with a strong crystal. The first suspension platforms are TiD2 and ZrD2 based; this is where they meet a strong field.
[HYDRIDE · REFERENCE]
The mobility-matched benchmark. Palladium holds the largest screening value in the record, 800 ± 90 eV, and the loading band above D/Pd 0.9 that the SRI record ties to excess-heat episodes.
[HYDRIDE · VOLUME PLATFORM]
About twice the deuteron density per metal atom of palladium at roughly one fiftieth of the price. Used only in its cubic (fluorite) hydride phase, where titanium screened high.
[HYDRIDE · VOLUME PLATFORM]
The second cheap, dense deuteron host. Zirconium screens at 297 ± 8 eV, but drops to the 80 ± 20 eV class when its surface re-oxidizes, so oxide state is logged for every batch.
[HYDRIDE · HYDROGEN CONTROL]
Loaded with ordinary hydrogen, not deuterium: the cheap hydrogen-side sister system and the like-for-like isotope control, run in the same rig as every deuterated cell.
[PIEZO · ACTIVE ARM]
The highest d33 of the four: the most charge per unit of squeeze, so the strongest contact field.
[PIEZO · ACTIVE ARM]
The lead-free main line: a solid d33 from a confirmed catalog powder below 3 µm.
[PIEZO · LOW-FIELD COMPARISON]
About two orders of magnitude weaker than the active arms. Same grains, same cell, far less charge: it isolates the piezoelectric variable.
[PIEZO · LOW-FIELD COMPARISON]
A weak longitudinal response with an extreme thermal margin: the second like-for-like comparison composition.
Specs §1 hydrides Specs §2 piezos Prices §1–2 Cluster 05 screening
Column key: D/M is the deuterium-to-metal atom ratio in the loaded lattice. GHS is the Globally Harmonized System hazard classification; SDS is the safety data sheet shipped with each lot.
| Consumable | Form and particle size | Purity | D/M target | Safety class | Handling notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pd (palladium black or powder) | Loose agglomerates 1 to 30 um built from 5 to 20 nm primary crystallites (estimate); sieve to 1 to 10 um for suspension work | 99.9% minimum; 99.995% trace-metals grades are catalog items | D/Pd 0.6 to 0.7 after gas loading (program concept physics) | Flammable solid, fine metal dust (GHS02, H228) | Argon glovebox; grounded, non-sparking tools; antistatic scoops; never sweep dry |
| PdDx pre-loaded target | Pd powder loaded in-house from D2 gas; target D/Pd 0.70 plus or minus 0.05, confirmed by gravimetric mass uptake and a pressure-composition check | Inherits base powder purity | 0.65 to 0.75 program target | Flammable dust; freshly dehydrided surfaces can ignite in air | Load in a Parr-class vessel at 1 to 5 bar D2, 80 to 150 C; transfer through the glovebox; store under a D2 or argon headspace and use within days |
| Ti sponge | Chunks 3 to 19 mm as shipped; crush under argon to 1 to 5 mm for vessel loading | 99.5% and 99.95% metals-basis catalog grades | D/Ti toward 1.9 (approaching TiD2) at 300 to 500 C under 1 to 10 bar D2 (estimate) | Low hazard as chunks; generated fines are flammable | Load chunks directly; crushing makes fines, collect them for disposal as flammable solid |
| Ti powder | Catalog mesh fractions: -100 mesh (below 150 um), -200 mesh (below 75 um); -325 mesh (below 44 um) preferred for suspensions | 99.4 to 99.5% metals basis | D/Ti toward 1.9 | Flammable solid (GHS02, H228); dry fine powder can be pyrophoric | Keep under argon; order wetted transport grades where offered and dry in vacuum immediately before deuteriding |
| TiD2 | Milled powder, 1 to 20 um (estimate) | 98% metal basis; 7.8% D by mass at exact TiD2 stoichiometry | D/Ti 1.7 to 2.0 | Dust class per lot SDS; releases D2 on heating above about 400 C (estimate) | Store sealed under argon; no open flame anywhere in the room during weighing; keep quantities below 100 g per container |
| Zr powder | Catalog -50 mesh (below 300 um); mill or buy below 44 um for suspension use | 99.5% catalog grade | D/Zr toward 2.0 at 400 to 600 C under D2 (estimate) | Pyrophoric when fine (GHS02); wetted grades used for transport | Glovebox only; room-temperature vacuum dry; keep lot sizes small |
| ZrD2 | Milled powder, 1 to 20 um (estimate) | 98% metal basis; 4.2% D by mass at exact ZrD2 stoichiometry | D/Zr 1.8 to 2.0 | Hydride dust; releases D2 above about 600 C (estimate) | As TiD2; avoid long air exposure because surface oxide blocks isotope uptake |
| Ni, carbonyl grade | Spherical particles, Fisher sub-sieve sizer size 2.5 to 3.5 um (estimate), soft agglomerates to 20 um | 99.5%+ metal basis (carbonyl process grades) | H/Ni or D/Ni below 1; program control target about 0.5 (estimate) | Flammable dust (H228) plus health classes: skin sensitizer and suspected inhalation carcinogen (H317, H351 class) | Weigh in a hood with dust collection; HEPA pickup only; nitrile gloves and dedicated spatulas |
Design lesson carried into the build: titanium and zirconium deuterides give close to two deuterons per metal atom at roughly one fiftieth of the palladium price, so the first suspension platforms are TiD2 and ZrD2 based, with PdDx reserved for the mobility-matched comparison cells.
d33 is the longitudinal piezoelectric charge coefficient in picocoulombs per newton. Curie temperature is the ferroelectric transition temperature; above it the poled state collapses.
| Composition | d33 (pC/N) | Particle size | Curie temperature | Safety class | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BaTiO3 (barium titanate) | about 190 for poled ceramic (textbook composition tables, Jaffe, Cook and Jaffe, Piezoelectric Ceramics, Academic Press, 1971) | Below 3 um at 99% as a confirmed catalog powder (Sigma-Aldrich 208108) | about 120 to 130 C | Low-hazard dust | Lead-free main line; dopant-softened grades reach higher d33 but complicate supply |
| PZT-5H (lead zirconate titanate, soft Navy Type VI class) | about 593 (standard composition table value; manufacturer datasheets list 580 to 650) | Sieve to 1 to 20 um from sintered discs or custom powder lots (estimate) | about 193 C | Lead oxide content: reproductive-toxicant class; RoHS exemption applies to piezoelectric ceramics | Highest d33 of the four; poling field 2 to 3 kV/mm at 120 to 150 C |
| PZT-5A (soft Navy Type II class) | about 374 (standard composition table value) | As PZT-5H | about 365 C | Lead oxide content, as PZT-5H | Thermal margin for heated vessels; second soft-composition arm of the matrix |
| ZnO (zinc oxide, wurtzite) | 12.4 single crystal (standard reference value; see Ozgur et al., J. Appl. Phys. 98, 041301, 2005) | Reagent powder, 1 to 5 um grades common | No ferroelectric Curie point below the melting point, about 1975 C | Aquatic-toxicant dust class | Low-field control composition of the matrix |
| LiNbO3 (lithium niobate, congruent) | 6.0 at 25 C (crystal datasheet: d31 -0.85, d22 20.8, d15 69.2; Crystal Technology DC-12 data sheet) | Powder on request or crushed congruent crystal; optical wafers 10 x 10 x 0.5 mm for seed crystals | 1142.3 plus or minus 0.7 C (Crystal Technology DC-12 data sheet) | Low-hazard dust | Low-field control composition with extreme temperature margin |
Poling is part of the specification, not an option: as-shown powders ship unpoled and give no net d33 in the suspension. Pole by corona or contact field at 3 to 5 kV/mm near 120 to 150 C for PZT and BaTiO3, or buy poled sintered discs and crush them under argon to 1 to 20 um, recording a Berlincourt-meter d33 for every lot. Crushed grains keep the polarization direction of their parent axis, so assume per-grain orientation spread and carry at least half of nominal d33 into field estimates (estimate).
Design lesson carried into the build: run all four compositions in one vessel geometry. PZT-5H and BaTiO3 are the active arms; ZnO and LiNbO3, with d33 two orders of magnitude lower, are the like-for-like comparison compositions that isolate the piezoelectric variable.
[02.3 · TWO CARRIER FAMILIES]
The powder sits either in a deuterated liquid or packed dry in a sealed cartridge. Both cell families share ports, sensors and mounts, so the instruments never need re-rigging between them.
[THE CARRIER RULE]
A liquid that conducts ions shields static charge within about 0.1 nm. So the carrier decides which drives carry the field.
Lab build §2 test cells Specs §3 carrier fluids Coupling rules
Viscosity values at 25 C unless noted. STF is shear-thickening fluid: a suspension whose viscosity rises sharply above a threshold shear rate.
| Fluid | Viscosity | Shear-thickening window | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fumed silica (hydrophilic, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller area 175 to 225 m2/g, about 12 nm primary particles; AEROSIL 200 datasheet) | n/a as powder | In polypropylene glycol at 15 to 25 wt%: thickening onset about 0.1 to 10 per second, viscosity rise of 10^2 to 10^4 times (estimate; literature class of Raghavan and Khan, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 185, 57, 1997) | Workhorse STF; dry the silica at 110 C under vacuum before dispersion |
| Polypropylene glycol, molar mass about 725 | 60 to 100 mPa-s (estimate) | carrier only | Inert to dry hydrides; the standard non-aqueous STF base |
| Cornstarch in glycerol or glycerol-water | Base liquid 100 to 1400 mPa-s depending on glycerol fraction | 30 to 45 wt% starch: onset about 10 to 100 per second with a discontinuous jump (estimate; phenomenology per Brown and Jaeger, Rep. Prog. Phys. 77, 046602, 2014) | Food-safe handling, coarse grains 5 to 20 um; rapid prototyping fluid for force-chain geometry only, never a D-bearing platform |
| Deuterated glycerol, above 98 atom % D | about 950 to 1400 mPa-s, within 2% of normal glycerol (estimate) | Use as the base for fully deuterated STFs at the loadings above | Fully deuterated non-aqueous carrier for slurry runs |
| Deuterated alkanes: dodecane-d26 and hexadecane-d34, 98 atom % D (confirmed catalog items) | dodecane-d26 about 1.4 mPa-s, hexadecane-d34 about 3 mPa-s (standard alkane values) | carrier only, no thickening by itself | Lowest-viscosity fully deuterated carriers; combine with fumed silica and hydride solids |
| D2O, heavy water, 99.9 atom % D (confirmed catalog item, Sigma-Aldrich 151882) | 1.25 mPa-s at 20 C; freezes at 3.8 C | carrier only; electrolyte recipes from the program concept: 2 M K2CO3 or 6 M D2SO4 in D2O | Ionic screening suppresses static contact-gap fields, so pair this carrier with 20 kHz ultrasound or pulsed-discharge excitation |
| Ionic liquid: 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMIM BF4), 98%+ (confirmed catalog item) | about 80 to 110 mPa-s when dry (estimate) | carrier only | Negligible vapor pressure, electrochemical window about 4 V; dry to below 100 ppm water at 80 C under vacuum and store over molecular sieve |
Design lesson carried into the build: the first suspension is fumed silica plus hydride particles in deuterated glycerol or deuterated alkane, a non-screening deuterated matrix; the D2O electrolyte cell is stage two, driven hard so that transients outrun the ionic screening.
[02.4 · SIX KNOBS]
Every mechanism in the record becomes a knob the device turns. None is optional: one integrated schedule drives all six.
Stretch a crystal and the hydrogen inside sits, moves and gathers differently.
[WHAT THE RECORD REPORTS]
palladium deuteride crosses the alpha-beta miscibility gap on the road to D/Pd about 0.7; titanium and zirconium deuterides sit in fluorite-structure windows near a ratio of 2. Strain shifts hydride site energies, diffusion barriers and phase stability, and hydride precipitates nucleate where tensile strain concentrates. These are Dan's own density functional theory findings, and the toolchain treats strain as an explicit input in every model (simulation/TOOLCHAIN.md).
[KNOBS THE DEVICE DRIVES]
static strain set by loading ratio and thermal-expansion mismatch between hydride grain, piezoelectric grain and carrier; oscillatory strain amplitude delivered by the 20 kHz pressure wave; phase-front mobility through the loading ramp and duty cycle; composition choice across the four hosts.
Short, sharp hits do what steady pressure cannot.
[WHAT THE RECORD REPORTS]
force chains in a shear-thickening suspension deliver contact stress pulses; the 2024 cavitation record ties reported neutron flux to constructive-interference pressure peaks of a few thousand psi; every burst-like record in clusters 02 and 08 shows emission tied to transient mechanical events, not steady state. Molecular dynamics resolves what a single pulse does to a contact, a grain and a gap; the honest boundary is that the 50 microsecond drive period is computed at the finite element level.
[KNOBS THE DEVICE DRIVES]
drive amplitude ceiling, burst duty cycle, particle size window (1 to 10 micrometers baseline), packing fraction, and the impact velocity distribution the sonotrode and flow field impose.
The metal's electrons shield deuterons from each other, so fusion gets far more likely.
[WHAT THE RECORD REPORTS]
screening potentials from 25 eV (gas) through the 300 eV class (aluminum, zirconium, palladium, tantalum) to 800 plus or minus 90 eV (palladium, LUNA) and the about 3.0 keV effective value on the sub-keV plateau; strength tracks electron density, crystal structure, defect and vacancy population, surface state and temperature.
[KNOBS THE DEVICE DRIVES]
host composition; cold work (milled versus annealed stock); oxide state per batch; operating temperature; vacancy population on witness foils measured by positron annihilation spectroscopy before and after mechanical excitation.
Squeezed crystals build fields that throw deuterons across tiny gaps.
[WHAT THE RECORD REPORTS]
piezoelectric grains in force chains convert 0.1 to 1 GPa contact stress into 0.3 to 0.6 C/m2 of bound charge and fields of 1e8 to 1e9 V/m across nanometer gaps; the pyroelectric precedent shows a crystal-built field of the 1e10 V/m class at nanometer tips ionizing D2 and driving deuterons to genuine D-D fusion energies; carrier chemistry decides how much field survives, because polar liquids screen static fields on nanometer scales.
[KNOBS THE DEVICE DRIVES]
carrier choice (dry bed versus deuterated oil versus electrolyte); gap-width distribution through particle size and roughness; piezoelectric volume fraction (about 10 percent baseline); d33 composition and poling fraction; external electrostatic bias of the cell, following the co-deposition field experiments.
Collapsing bubbles make microsecond hot spots of roughly 5000 C.
[WHAT THE RECORD REPORTS]
collapsing bubbles reach roughly 5000 C at hundreds of atmospheres for a few microseconds; in slurries, shock-driven collisions plastically deform and melt metal surfaces; chilled operation hardened reported implosion conditions; sonoluminescence flashes are time-correlated with bubble dynamics.
[KNOBS THE DEVICE DRIVES]
acoustic power against the cavitation-margin ceiling computed by the horn and cell model; bulk temperature (chilled 0 to 10 C for designated cavitation runs, estimate); degassing state; sonotrode tip geometry and standoff.
Breaking grains release bursts, and fresh cracks make a background the lab must separate.
[WHAT THE RECORD REPORTS]
fracture and impact act as transient deuteron sources with burst kinetics, from the 1986 and 1989 deuterated-solids records through rock compression to the 2024 deuterated-titanium cavitation record; newly formed crack surfaces also emit charged particles and light on their own, which is a background every fracture-dominated excitation must separate; deuterium supplied through the solid phase is what the strongest cavitation record points to.
[KNOBS THE DEVICE DRIVES]
milling freshness and defect density of the powder; impact velocity and contact stress amplitude; hydride presence as the dose-response variable (the 2024 record saw no excess from D2 bubbles or D2O droplets and reported flux only with Ti/D powder present); burst-locked counting windows synchronized to the drive.
[02.5 · THE EXCITATION STACK]
Ultrasound, field, discharge, heat and small power steps are not five devices. They are layers of one timed program on one vessel, so every result stays comparable. Open a layer for its hardware and what it couples to.
[02.6 · DESIGN INPUTS FROM THE RECORD]
Every reported value becomes a design input with a named source: who reported it, and what it fixes in the build.
Reported
about 0.7 to 1 at room temperature; SRI operating band above 0.9 before any excitation is judged; 8 to 23 day episode appearance times; 51-experiment split: excess power in a rising fraction of runs above D/Pd 0.90 and in all runs above 1.00
Source prior-art/01, prior-art/03, concept brief
Sets the design
Palladium is the mobility-matched reference composition, pre-loaded to D/Pd 0.70 plus or minus 0.05; a resistance-ratio (or gravimetric) loading monitor runs on every hydride stage, always on
Reported
toward 1.9 to 2.0 in TiD2 and ZrD2 (fluorite structure), reached in gas at 300 to 600 C; roughly one fiftieth of the palladium price per atom
Source prior-art/04, materials/SPECS.md, concept brief
Sets the design
TiD2 and ZrD2 at 1 to 10 micrometers are the volume platforms: about twice the deuteron density per metal atom of PdD at commodity cost; slower diffusion is paid for in the loading ramp, not in the run
Sets the design
Nickel is the cheap hydrogen-side sister system and the like-for-like isotope control; gas-loaded Ni-based nano-composites carry the 150 to 350 C record
Reported
1.5 to 2.3 eV per D on nano-oxide composites after artificial re-oxidation; performance restored after aging
Source prior-art/04
Sets the design
Every batch ships with a stated oxidation state; the schedule carries periodic re-oxidation-hydriding refresh cycles for the powder stock
Reported
order 5e28 per cubic meter at PdD0.7 (concept-brief arithmetic)
Source concept brief
Sets the design
Rate kernels take this as the local density for every yield-per-liter calculation
Reported
Pd grows and loads simultaneously from 0.05 M PdCl2 plus 0.3 M LiCl in D2O; film is always fresh and defect-rich
Source prior-art/01
Sets the design
In-situ loading fallback if pre-loaded powder ages: plate substrate grains or screens immediately before a run
Reported
Pd: 80 to 150 C at 1 to 5 bar D2 (in-house recipe); Ti: 300 to 500 C at 1 to 10 bar est.; Zr: 400 to 600 C est.
Source materials/SPECS.md
Sets the design
Loading furnace and vessel ratings; split loading protocol per host; ramp rates 1 to 5 C per minute under PID control
Reported
150 to 350 C with oil mass-flow calorimetry at 23 plus or minus 0.1 C ambient, 100 g-class beds, the MHE six-organization configuration
Source prior-art/04
Sets the design
Stage-two dry-bed cell and calorimeter copy this chain, including zirconia-bead blank runs to fix heat recovery
Reported
chilled operation sharpened reported cavitation implosions; our ultrasound runs hold 0 to 10 C est.
Source prior-art/02
Sets the design
Circulator-chilled suspension cell so collapse conditions harden and vapor pressure stays low
Reported
load at 250 C, evacuate, then heat rapidly: an explicit hydrogen-flux trigger in the Tohoku multilayer line
Source prior-art/03
Sets the design
The thermal stage of the drive schedule includes a programmed flux step, the mechanical analog being the 20 kHz pressure wave
Reported
Mizuno line: 50 to 300 Pa D2 onto heated nano-structured Pd/Ni, walls about 200 C; Brillouin: H2 up to 15 bar; Parkhomov: about 1100 C and higher
Source prior-art/03, prior-art/04
Sets the design
Vacuum and pressure envelope of the gas path spans 50 Pa to 15 bar; loading manifold certified to 100 bar gauge class
Reported
working 0 to 8 bar absolute headspace, test 12 bar, relief 10 bar, burst margin beyond 24 bar; outer containment to about 131 bar
Source lab/LAB-BUILD.md
Sets the design
Every cell: certified primary boundary plus relief path into the flare line
Reported
20 to 24 kHz horn class at 400 to 2000 W (Hielscher UP400St 24 kHz/400 W is the lab baseline); 40 kHz distributed bath class; 28/40/80 kHz transducer modules
Source prior-art/02, prior-art/08, materials/SPECS.md, lab/LAB-BUILD.md
Sets the design
24 kHz immersion sonotrode is the primary mechanical drive; 40 kHz wall drive is the comparison geometry; both feed the same vessel
Reported
0.01 s on / 0.01 s off burst program in the 2024 deuterated-titanium cavitation record; reported neutron flux appeared only during constructive-interference pressure peaks of a few thousand psi
Source prior-art/08
Sets the design
Burst-mode drive with programmable on/off ratio; peak stress amplitude is a primary scan variable
Reported
skin-effect concentrated pulses from tens of nanoseconds to microseconds (Brillouin architecture); excess power mapped against pulse voltage, width, duty cycle and gas pressure
Source prior-art/03
Sets the design
The pulsed-discharge stage sweeps the same four-axis matrix on our electrode pair
Reported
small negative-then-positive input step increases integrated output (about 38 kJ per shown cycle) at unchanged average power (Tohoku 2024)
Source prior-art/03
Sets the design
Drive electronics support controlled perturbation cycles, not steady state only
Reported
10 mF film bank to 1.5 kV, up to about 11 kJ per shot, fiber-triggered 3.1 kV MOSFET switch
Source lab/LAB-BUILD.md
Sets the design
Millisecond to microsecond current pulses through cell electrodes; every shot logged with bank voltage before and after
Reported
hot spots of roughly 5000 C at hundreds of atmospheres lasting a few microseconds; slurry shock collisions plastically deform and melt metal surfaces
Source prior-art/02
Sets the design
The transient our suspension is built to produce at hydride grain contacts; acoustic power stays below the cavitation margin except in designated cavitation runs
Reported
20 kHz period is 50 microseconds; contact-charge response at contacts is sub-picosecond per ab initio molecular dynamics
Source simulation/TOOLCHAIN.md
Sets the design
Per-pulse physics computed by molecular dynamics, periodic drive by finite elements; duty cycle is chosen at the FEM level
Reported
estimated 0.1 to 1 GPa in dense shear-thickening suspensions est.
Source concept brief, prior-art/08
Sets the design
The stress window molecular dynamics and discrete element models must reproduce; transducer power sized against Stringham's reported 1e16 bubbles per second class for full-volume cavitation
Reported
8 to 23 days in SRI cells; weeks of glow-discharge activation in the Mizuno line; one-day fast activation reaching 10 to 40 W excess in the 2019 report
Source prior-art/03
Sets the design
The 12-month schedule budgets multi-day runs and activation cycles: load, bake, gas-dose, repeat; burst-tolerant time-stamped logging on every channel
Sets the design
Every host value is quoted against this baseline
Sets the design
Benchmark host for the cubic face-centered class
Reported
297 plus or minus 8 eV (2001, confirmed 2008), 295 plus or minus 7 eV (2004); falls to the 80 plus or minus 20 eV class when the surface re-oxidizes
Source prior-art/05
Sets the design
ZrD2 platform host; oxide state is a logged batch variable because it moves the screening number by a factor of several
Reported
296 plus or minus 15 eV at PdD0.2 (2004), 310 plus or minus 50 eV (Tohoku 2002), 313 plus or minus 2 eV (2008), 800 plus or minus 90 eV (LUNA 2002), the largest d(d,p)t value in the record
Source prior-art/05
Sets the design
Palladium hosts the single most valuable number in the field; our first comparison cells test whether it transfers off the beam platform
Reported
322 plus or minus 15 eV (2001), 302 plus or minus 13 eV (2004), 309 plus or minus 12 eV (LUNA 2002), 213 to 462 eV across four surface histories (2008)
Source prior-art/05
Sets the design
Surface-history spread shows why every batch logs polishing, sputter and oxidation state
Sets the design
The built-in null host: strong D-C chemical bonding removes the metallic screening channel
Sets the design
Metallic electron density is the screening carrier: our hosts are all metals or metal deuterides
Reported
order 400 eV observed against about 100 eV theoretical; atomically clean ultra-high-vacuum targets pull the value back toward theory
Source prior-art/05
Sets the design
Defect and vacancy population is a first-class lever; our milled powders live in the high-defect regime by construction, with annealed stock as the comparison arm
Reported
cubic-phase titanium screened high, hexagonal-phase titanium small, in the same campaign; cubic face-centered palladium and nickel carry the largest confirmed values
Source prior-art/05
Sets the design
Titanium enters the host list only in its cubic hydride phase: load to the fluorite phase before any run is judged
Reported
screening moves measurably with host temperature (platinum 20 to 340 C study)
Source prior-art/05
Sets the design
Witness-target screening is characterized at the same temperatures the device runs, not only at room temperature
Reported
reaction yield stops falling below about 2.5 keV beam energy; enhancement above 1e18 over bare-nucleus rates below about 2 keV; effective screening potential about 3.0 keV for palladium deuteride at 0.25 keV beam energy
Source prior-art/07
Sets the design
The target operating window: contact-gap deuterons at 0.25 to 2.5 keV, on palladium first, titanium second
Reported
300 eV screening multiplies the bare D-D rate by about 1e4 at 1 keV, about 3e11 at 0.5 keV, about 27 at 2 keV est., standard formula; with a 1e18-class enhancement the deuteron mean free path at 1 keV shrinks from about 1e10 m to about 10 nm est.
Source prior-art/05, prior-art/07, concept brief
Sets the design
Optimization target fixed: maximize gap field at the lowest credible gap-crossing energy, because every volt across a gap is worth more at lower deuteron energy
Reported
PZT-5H about 593 pC/N, PZT-5A about 374, BaTiO3 about 190, ZnO 12.4, LiNbO3 6 to 69 depending on axis
Source materials/SPECS.md
Sets the design
Four-composition matrix: PZT-5H and BaTiO3 are the active arms; ZnO and LiNbO3, two orders of magnitude lower, are the like-for-like comparison compositions that isolate the piezoelectric variable
Reported
d33 times 0.1 to 1 GPa stress gives 0.3 to 0.6 C/m2 bound charge; 1e10 to 1e11 V/m across an unscreened nanometer gap est.; 1e8 to 1e9 V/m with realistic partial screening (design target)
Source concept brief, simulation/TOOLCHAIN.md
Sets the design
Field-at-gap budget 1e8 to 1e9 V/m; finite element contact cells decide carrier choice (dry bed preserves static fields; electrolyte suppresses them)
Reported
0.1 to 1 keV gained across a 1 nm gap est.; design window 0.25 to 2.5 keV
Source concept brief, prior-art/07
Sets the design
Grain surface roughness and gap statistics set the upper deuteron spectrum: asperity geometry is a design variable, not an accident
Reported
heated LiTaO3 develops surface potential of order 100 kV; tungsten tips of nanometer radius concentrate fields to the 1e10 V/m class at the apex; D2 ionizes at the tip and deuterons reach genuine D-D fusion energies, yielding 2.45 MeV neutrons and 3 MeV protons; paired crystals double the potential; yield multiplied 5.6 by geometry optimization
Source prior-art/06
Sets the design
Proof that crystal-built fields do the ion-source and accelerator work: our contact asperities copy the tip-geometry criterion (field concentration on a sharp dielectric-bounded feature)
Reported
LiTaO3 of order 10 nC/cm2/K; neutron output set by thermal-cycle duty; feedback-controlled stacks run quasi-continuously
Source prior-art/06
Sets the design
Our 20 kHz mechanical drive replaces the slow thermal cycle with a pulse train, raising the effective repetition rate by many orders of magnitude est.
Reported
Debye length in 6 M electrolyte about 0.1 nm: only transients faster than ionic screening survive in electrolyte
Source concept brief
Sets the design
Stage-one carrier is deuterated oil or glycerol or a dry bed; stage-two aqueous electrolyte is paired with 20 kHz ultrasound or pulsed discharge so transients outrun screening
Reported
as-shipped powders are unpoled and give no net d33; pole at 3 to 5 kV/mm near 120 to 150 C; crushed grains keep the parent polarization axis, carry at least half of nominal d33 into field estimates est.
Source materials/SPECS.md
Sets the design
Every lot poled and measured with a Berlincourt meter before entering a suspension; orientation spread carried into the field budget
Reported
helium rate near 1e11 atoms per second per watt in gas samples taken during excess-power episodes
Source prior-art/01
Sets the design
Headspace mass spectrometry with getter separation of helium-4 from D2 at mass 4, calibrated against a known helium dose into an identical cell
Reported
sporadic, estimated 1e3 to 1e4 atoms per second, burst-like events separated by inactive periods
Source prior-art/01
Sets the design
Burst-tolerant scheduled sampling; the record's sporadicity sets multi-day runs and time-stamped capture on all channels
Reported
CR-39 track densities above controls at the cathode; triple tracks diagnostic of 12C(n,n')3-alpha, neutrons of 9.6 MeV or more inferred by the authors; calibrated against a deuterium-tritium generator
Source prior-art/01
Sets the design
CR-39 in open-and-masked pairs plus spacer stacks inside every cell; automated linear-energy-transfer scanning workflow
Reported
3.02 MeV protons are the D-D branch signature; monoenergetic lines near 3.02 MeV would indicate discrete field-accelerated deuterons, continua would indicate heat-driven rates
Source prior-art/07
Sets the design
Silicon surface-barrier detector behind a thin window watches the proton branch in every run; predicted spectra from the kernels plan detector exposures
Reported
strongest reported burst near four times background in the 1996 slurry record; up to about 4e5 per second in the 2004 cavitation follow-up; more than 6500 counts per minute at peak against sub-0.5 counts per minute background in the 2024 deuterated-titanium record
Source prior-art/02, prior-art/08
Sets the design
Detector dynamic range spans single counts to megacounts per minute: moderated helium-3 for totals, liquid scintillator pair for spectroscopy and time of flight
Sets the design
Two-detector coincidence window is the artifact-resistant pair that must agree with CR-39 before a signal enters a report
Sets the design
Transducer power scale for full-active-volume cavitation runs (authors' report)
[02.7 · MATERIALS AND SUPPLIERS]
Every consumable is a catalog item or a short in-house recipe. Prices are planning estimates in US dollars from open catalogs seen on 2026-10-21, not quotations.
36k–64k total, dominated by the ultrasonic processors and loading vessels, both reusable across campaigns.
[BUY ORDER]
[CHEAPEST ISOTOPE PATH]
Load TiD2 and ZrD2 ex situ from deuterium gas. Buy isotope-grade packs for the first campaign; switch to cylinders once use passes about one pack a month.
Materials specs Suppliers and prices Supplier confirmation log
[02.8 · WHAT WE MEASURE]
Each observable pairs a lab instrument with the simulation that plans its exposure, and feeds a number back into the design.
[GO DEEPER]
