Dual Laser Stimulation and Optical Phonons in Palladium Deuteride

In work done in 2007, we observed that two laser beams irradiating a deuterated palladium cathode at a single spot induced significant thermal increases many times larger than those expected from laser heating alone. This effect was observed only when the lasers were tuned to produce a beat frequency near 8 THz, 15 THz and 20 THz. These preliminary experiments support the conjecture that optical phonons are involved in the heat-producing mechanism (THz = 10 12 Hz). In recent experiments, results from more than 20 runs appear to confirm the three thermally sensitive frequencies at 8, 15 and 20 THz. Further, the experiments allowed us to produce an initial thermal response spectrum.