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In making the below article, a number of academics/tutors/teachers were consulted.

The rush to find a revolutionary sustainable energy source is becoming increasingly important as concerning projections on those remaining are made. Nuclear fusion has proved to produce large energy outputs but only with methods requiring more energy than harvested.

The general concencus from the academics/tutors/teachers was that:
When claims to achieving nuclear fusion relatively readily from noise waves concentrated scrutiny and criticism was inevitable. R.P.Taleyarkhan et al. published the original papers outlining exactly these results in 2002 that have since been dismissed by various scientists.

Taleyarkhan et al. claims to produce fusion using sonofusion, the phenomena sonoluminescence (SL) under specific conditions. SL is when high velocity ultra sonic waves are focused onto very small bubbles inside a liquid, the vibrations from the sound cause the bubble to collapse and let out a flash of light. The experiments carried out in involve creating sonoluminescence in deuterated acetone with unique bubbles, produced using a pulse of neutrons. These demonstrated more stable than tiny air bubbles already present in the liquid, which enabled high pressure and temperature conditions.

If D-D fusion occurs the outputs of tritium and neutrons should be the same and occur simultaneously with the production of light. However, one source shows that the results from the experiments don’t agree with this, with a tritium neutron ratio of a maximum 10:1, and they reason this with:

1)’Neutron energy losses by scattering in the test chamber’

2) ‘Reduced detections efficiency for sizeable-angle knock-ons from 2.5MeV neutrons’

3) ‘Possible irregularities in T concentration in the acetone’

M.J.Saltmarsh and D.Shapira reconstructed the experiment and claimed that these reasons would only permit a 2:1 which doesn’t allow for the 10:1 ratio described in. They also interrogated the difference in timing of the light from SL and the neutrons detected from the acclaimed sonofusion. Suggesting the neutron counts were not harvested in the SL but were from background noise and muddled with the neutrons being used to form the bubbles.

In response to this report Taleyarkhan et al. said didn’t account for experimental discrepancies and that they had mishandled the data in their calculations. Taleyarkin et al. later reported an additional article in 2004 citing that the previous results had been reconstructed with the addition of neutron output on later cycles in the bubble implosions.

In 2005 the BBC got involved, asking S.Putterman to execute an independent experiment Puttermans results produced absolutely no conjunction between the timing of the SL flashes and the neutron signals and so concluded negative.

The moral side of this issue is also of immense interest, with Taleyarkhan being implicated by Dr.Suslick for scientific misconduct in 2006. This was not further pursued when a new report of Taleyarkhans results being repeated by E.Forringer et al was published later that year. However on September 10th 2007 it was declared extra investigation was being reinitiated due to several issues including the repeated results being carried out in Taleyarkhan’s own labs.

The academics/tutors/teachers concluded that:
The riddle over sonofusion can be found with extra experimentation and has the potential to revolutionise the modern world.