At 03:02 AM 10/5/2010, Rich Murray wrote:
Hello Abd,
I support your courageous initiative to develop
a low-cost kit to demonstrate a neutron emission
anomaly in a small LENR electrolysis cell.
This is a possible revolutionary experiment.
Well, it's really just a replication, though with
some twists. We'll see if it works.
I especially like that your design eliminates
charged particle and EM radiation background --
it would be easier to count and measure a
limited number of neutron proton recoil pits.
That's the idea. It may not matter. When I've
looked at LR-115, background counts are not high.
But I'm interested in vector information; that's
why having two layers is interested. More layers
would be better, but that would require special
materials, I think. They don't exist. But two is
easy, just two films front-to-front, held down together.
These events might produce flashes of light,
from IR to UV, and of sound, which could be used
to set off a webcam and mike for exact recording
of signals, locations on the chip, and energy.
Yeah. Maybe. I'll have a video microscope looking
at it, and I can transfer the videos to a
computer. I'll have a digital storage
oscilloscope recording the sound, and that can be
transferred as well, and post-processed. Don't
know how I'll sync them, though. Cross one bridge
at a time. I suppose, during a session, I could
tap the cell, causing a little jerk in the
microscope and a noise in the sound. I don't know
yet how much data I'll be recording with the DSO,
I think it's 2 Gsamples deep, as I recall. So if
I'm looking at 100 Ksamples/sec, I could record quite a bit!
What are the exact measurements of the acrylic
cell, and of the volume of electrolyte?
The interior of the cell is roughly 1 inch square by two inches high.
Also, the dry mass of the cell should be
measured, so that comparisons can be made after each run.
Well, I pretty much doubt that any cell will be re-used.
What is the exact composition and density of the
acrilic plastic? Electric breakdown voltage,
resistance, dilectric constant? What solvants affect it?
It's acrylic! I'm using a standard cell, as
recommended in the Galileo protocol. It's a
little box sold by AMAC Plastic Products, 752C.
In qty 100 they cost about a dollar each, or
something like that. I don't know the numbers.
Acrylic is not always exactly the same, but ....
I'm not putting any high voltage on this! Rich,
nobody is doing that high voltage thing any more,
AFAIK. I don't think magnets are being used,
either. The magnet was abandoned in the middle of the Galileo project.
Acrylic can be glued with methylene chloride. I think that dissolves it....
How uniform is it on the micro and nanoscale?
It's pretty smooth stuff, but I don't know and I don't really care much.
Are there any residual stresses in it from the
pressures used in manufacture? These might show up under polarized light.
Possibly. But I'm terribly exercised about this.
I'm using an acrylic box because that's what the
Galileo protocol used and that's what's been used
in a number of SPAWAR publications, most notably
the one with the cool image that shows, from one
CR-39 detector, the results for a platinum wire
at the top, a silver wire in the middle, and a
gold wire on the bottom. You can see front side
tracks from all three wires, but on the back
side, no tracks from the silver, some from the
platinum, and massive tracks with the gold.
Massive. Of course, this is a three-week
accumulation or so, so "massive" could mean well under a track per minute.
Neutrons are clearly not produced by the main
reaction. This is from a rare branch or secondary
reactions. Almost all the helium is produced
without detectable radiation, it appears from
Hagelstein's recent analysis. I don't know about
front side alphas, if those tracks are alphas,
they might be proton tracks as well. They might
also be exaggerated by chemical damage. Don't
know. And that won't apply to me, because my detectors will stay dry.
Since humidity affects the LR-115, the cell
could be placed in a plastic bag, sealed with a
rubber band around the cell near the top of the cell, along with a dessicant.
Well, maybe. That would kinda get in the way of
the microscope. I don't really care if humidity
affects it some, because we are looking at a
pretty gross process, and there will be control
detectors on each cell, in different positions.
And there will be the light water cell controls
as well. Detectors are cheap, if I keep them small.
Thanks for the paper abstract, Rich. They didn't
say the etch temperature. It makes a big
difference. Probably 60 degrees C., that's the
recommendation. I intend to do sequential
etching. That is, I'll etch for a shorter period
than two hours, let the detectors dry and image
them at high resolution, then I'll etch them
again, and may etch them a third time. I intend
to etch all the detectors for a run
simultanously, because small variation in etch temperature could be a problem.
I'm not really certain yet, I want to play with
alpha tracks some more before I actually etch the
real thing. The images are pretty. They were
using in this study, it looks like, 12 micron
LR-115. I have 6 micron material. I chose that
for the precision. Maybe that will turn out to be
foolish, but, hey, it's under four hundred
dollars for a package of 25 sheets 9x12 cm. I'm
selling single sheets for just under $30.
Note that they are talking about "alpha
spectroscopy," where the attempt is to measure
alpha energies. I don't have figures on the
thickness control on the material. It's not
really designed for that, it is more designed for
track counting. I'll try to extract a little more
information, but it's not central. Tracks
appearing in the middle of the sandwich, on both
layers in alignment, and not on controls, and
co-located with the cathode (most dense there,
inverse square law decline with distance), and
especially if I can get vector information
indicating the cathode as a source, frosting on
the cake, should be fine. Neutrons.
I'll have some detectors aligned almost edge-on
with the cathode, so neutrons would enter this
running along the layer. I might be able to see a
few proton tracks originating and running their
whole life within the cellulose nitrate. Really,
I don't know what I'll see, I'm just sticking my
finger in the air, seeing which way the wind blows.
Radiation Measurements 36 (2003) 245-248
www.elsevier.com/locate/radmeas
Study of inhomogeneity in thickness of LR 115
detector with SEM and Form Talysurf
C.W.Y. Yip, J.P.Y. Ho, D. Nikezic1, K.N. Yu?
Department of Physics and Materials Science,
City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Received 21 October 2002; accepted 24 April 2003
Abstract
Long-term measurements of radon progeny
concentrations using Solid-State nuclear tract
detector are being actively explored.
These measurements depend critically on the
thickness of the removed layer during etching.
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations
have identifed irregularities in etched LR 115
detectors, such as detachment of the active
layer from the substrate and formation of air gaps in the substrate.
After discarding these irregularities, by using
"Form Talysurf" surface profile measurements,
the thickness of the active layers for the LR
115 detector are found to be 11.8 ± 0.2 and 5.0
± 0.4 microm before and after 2 h of etching, respectively.
The coefficient of variation has thus risen from 1.7% to 8.0% on etching.
The increased inhomogeneity is explained by the
formation of track-like damages, which have been
observed using Form Talysurf, SEM, optical
microscope and atomic force microscope.
With this relative large coefficient of
variation, the thickness of the active layer in
the LR 115 detector cannot be assumed to be
homogeneous in general, and the associated
uncertainties should be considered carefully
when the detector is used for alpha spectroscopy.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: LR 115; Thickness; Bulk etch
