Thanks you for this comment and information, Mark. To put things into perspective, the Curie point and not the Debye temperature of nickel seems to be the most important parameter for gain in Ni-H.
Arata/Zhang discovered this, Ahern and several other prestigious groups replicated - and all were scientific papers - and none of them found much significance to the Debye temperature. In contrast, the DGT results are based on a convincing demo but not scientific nor vetted - and are clearly part fact and part fiction. The fiction part is troubling and self-serving. From: Mark Jurich .As far as I understand it, the Debye Temperature can be thought of as roughly the temperature at which the very highest frequency/energy phonon mode is excited in a material/crystal. Thus at/above T(Debye), all possible Phonon Modes in the material/crystal are being excited, thermally. In other words, if one wants to excite a material/crystal in every possible way (in terms of The Debye Model), then raise the temperature of the material/crystal above the Debye Temperature. I believe the Debye Temperature for pure Nickel is roughly 450 K at/near Absolute Zero (I've seen values of 375 K, but that is the Temperature Dependent Phenomenological Debye Temperature as one moves away from Absolute Zero towards Room Temperature and higher[2], and the Debye Model is less accurate). So subtract 273.15 K and one obtains the Debye Temperature of Nickel to be approximately 177 C, hence the value of 179 C stated by John H during the demo. As one increases the temperature above the Debye Temperature, the amplitudes of all the phonon vibrations/modes continue to increase. I don't believe there is anything else really magical about the Debye Temperature than this, but I could be wrong! FYI: When Protium (Hydrogen-1) is incorporated into Nickel, the Debye Temperature will change! [1] Debye model --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debye_model [2] Lattice Mechanical Properties of Pd, Pt and Ni - A Model Potential Approach --> http://www.kps.or.kr/home/kor/journal/library/downloadPdf.asp?articleuid=%7B 244F63AB-595B-4070-A7B7-6EB7FC293C68%7D - Mark Jurich
