Lithium tantalate ( Li Ta O₃) is a perovskite which possesses unique

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

piezoelectric Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied mechanical stress. The word '' ...

and

pyroelectric Pyroelectricity (from the two Greek words ''pyr'' meaning fire, and electricity) is a property of certain crystals which are naturally electrically polarized and as a result contain large electric fields. Pyroelectricity can be described as the a ...

properties which make it valuable for

nonlinear optics Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''nonlinear media'', that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typic ...

, passive infrared sensors such as motion detectors, terahertz generation and detection,

surface acoustic wave A surface acoustic wave (SAW) is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the material, such that they are confined to a depth of about ...

applications, cell phones and possibly pyroelectric nuclear fusion. Considerable information is available from commercial sources about this salt.

Pyroelectric fusion

According to an April 2005 ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' article, Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski and Seth Putterman at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

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" or other IEC, this method focuses electrical acceleration to a much smaller non-ionized

deuterium Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being protium, or hydrogen-1). The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one ...

target without heat.

Water and freezing

A scientific paper published in February 2010 shows a difference in the temperature and mechanism of freezing water to ice, depending on the charge applied to a surface of pyroelectric LiTaO₃ crystals.

Pyroelectric fusion

Water and freezing

References

Further reading