“室温下核聚变”又回来了。不过，这次可能是真的。

今天的英国《自然》杂志有一篇重要文章：美国加州大学洛杉矶分校的科学家在室温下、实验台上成功地实现核聚变。这里是摘要：

Letters to Nature

Nature 434, 1115-1117 (28 April 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03575

Observation of nuclear fusion driven by a pyroelectric crystal
B. Naranjo1, J.K. Gimzewski2,3 and S. Putterman1,3

Abstract

While progress in fusion research continues with magnetic1 and inertial2 confinement, alternative approaches—such as Coulomb explosions of deuterium clusters3 and ultrafast laser−plasma interactions4—also provide insight into basic processes and technological applications. However, attempts to produce fusion in a room temperature solid-state setting, including 'cold' fusion5 and 'bubble' fusion6, have met with deep scepticism7. Here we report that gently heating a pyroelectric crystal in a deuterated atmosphere can generate fusion under desktop conditions. The electrostatic field of the crystal is used to generate and accelerate a deuteron beam (> 100 keV and >4 nA), which, upon striking a deuterated target, produces a neutron flux over 400 times the background level. The presence of neutrons from the reaction D + D right arrow 3He (820 keV) + n (2.45 MeV) within the target is confirmed by pulse shape analysis and proton recoil spectroscopy. As further evidence for this fusion reaction, we use a novel time-of-flight technique to demonstrate the delayed coincidence between the outgoing alpha-particle and the neutron. Although the reported fusion is not useful in the power-producing sense, we anticipate that the system will find application as a simple palm-sized neutron generator.