Energetic Ion Emission from TiDx in Low-Energy Ion Beam Experiments

Low-level energetic ion emission has been reported previously in many low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) experiments including electrolysis, gas-loading and ion beam experiments. The corresponding reports present evidence for MeV-level charged ions and neutrons associated with deuterium-deuterium fusion reactions, and also particles at higher energy that would be expected to originate from other processes. A study of low-level energetic nuclear particles has the potential to shed light on nuclear processes relevant to excess heat production and other LENR anomalies, which provides motivation to focus on such observables. In some of the referenced earlier experiments a small number of very energetic charged particle emissions near 20 MeV have been reported, which is of particular interest to us in connection with the involved mechanisms. We developed an ion beam experiment in which thick (1.59 mm) and thin (5 µm) Ti foils were initially loaded with deuterium by ion beam implantation and then bombarded with argon ions at 950 eV. A small number of counts in high-energy detector channels were recorded in eight different experiments, corresponding to particle energies estimated to be between 32-40 MeV, based on a calibration at lower energies with an 241Am calibration source. Experiments with the 5 µm Ti foil also resulted in dozens of counts below about 11 MeV. © 2023 ICCF. All rights reserved.