LOS ANGELES: A team of physicists at the University of California, Los Angeles, claims to have created a tabletop nuclear fusion, which could ultimately lead to a solution for clean energy.
Scientists around the world have been trying for several years to devise a method to generate power through nuclear fusion, the same power that actually lights the sun or the stars. The UCLA experiment could possibly be a breakthrough under lab conditions in solving the world's energy needs.
The experiment used a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. Though it could not produce energy, the method could have several uses, like in the oil-drilling industry and security, according to one of the physicists in the team, Seth Putterman.
Previous experiments in this field, though claimed success, have no validations. Chief among them was the claim in 1989 by Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England that they had achieved the so-called cold fusion at room temperature. However, later studies proved them to be wrong.
Experts feel the present experiment did not violate basic principles of physics. "This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method," said David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "There's no mystery in terms of the physics."
In nuclear fusion, light atoms are joined in a high-temperature process which frees large amounts of energy. Fusion power is seen as the future energy source. It is cleaner and cheaper than fossil fuels, which are expected to run short in about 50 years. It produces virtually no air pollution and there is no threat of radioactivity unlike in the case of nuclear power plants, using uranium -- the process called fission.
The UCLA experiment used a pocket-sized device. The scientists involved said it required a small change in the temperature of the crystal. The device could be of use in future to detect terrorists' bombs, repair tumors in the body and propel a miniature spacecraft.
Said Seth Putterman: "Imagine something the size of an egg with no wires coming in or out. When it is warmed in your hand or plunged into ice water, it will generate nuclear fusion."
He, however, said the crystal fusion method would not be useful for generating power. Rather, the device, which fuses deuterium (heavy hydrogen), would have applications as an easily portable generator of neutrons: particles that can penetrate deep into matter, providing a way "to look underground or behind steel walls".
Neutrons can be used, for example, to detect oil in rocks, land mines, and hidden explosives and nuclear materials, he said.
