Central claims: Popa-Simil (one manifest document: Nano-Hetero Structure for direct energy conversion, NSTI-Nanotech 2007)
No source gap: the single manifest document has a full text layer (4 pages); Eq.1 and Figs. 1-2 were read from page images, and pp.3-4 were deep-read after QE. Five Investigator-gathered documents (Klassen et al. 2013 chapter, two Popa-Simil patent applications, the 2012 roadmap paper, Stepanov et al. 2018) were also deep-read and are listed as supplementary entries in facts.json; they are not in the manifest.
- A repeating conductor-insulator-conductor-insulator (CIci) nano-structure may convert the kinetic energy of fission products directly into electricity at higher than 80% efficiency; the abstract says efficiency 'may be higher than 80%' [read: p.1]. The patent application calls its 84% an upper estimator of ionization energy stopped in the C layer, to be obtained by experiment [read: US20100061503A1 para 0121].
- The mechanism is a difference in electron-shower intensity between adjacent conductors: electrons from the high-yield conductor cross a nanometre insulator and charge the low-yield collector [read: p.1, p.3].
- A reactor that harvests fission energy this way would run cold, because less energy is left as heat [read: p.1]. The author's stated mechanism: fission products make electron showers of few-micron range in resistive UO2 ceramic, which heat the lattice; giving those shower currents a much lower-resistance path through the conducting layers prevents the heating [read: p.3]. No calculation or data is given for it.
- Millivolt-level modules (under 10 mV, limited by insulator breakdown) can be stacked and raised to grid voltage by a cascade of DC/AC and AC/AC converters, possibly aided by Josephson and Andreev effects [read: p.3].
- Superconducting actinide compounds (PuCoGa5, Tc ~18.5 K; 'PuCoRh5' as printed, Tc ~8.7 K, probably PuRhGa5) can serve as the harvesting structure in cryogenic nuclear reactors, with radiation damage balanced by self-repair over the reactor lifetime [read: p.3-4]. The paper's own 'energetic balance' condition (printed as harvested electric energy 'smaller' than the energy spent removing heat, probably a slip for 'larger') applies to this claim and is not quantified [read: p.3].
- This could raise fuel power density from ~0.2-0.5 kW/cm3 to a theoretical 5000 kW/cm3 [read: p.4].
Note: the paper presents only a SRIM-2003 simulation (100 MeV Cs through an eleven-layer stack), no measurements on a built structure. The deep read found the printed stopping-power equation differs from the standard Bethe-Bloch form in four places, the text and figures disagree on layer thicknesses, and in the simulated stack the ion loses about 9% of its energy [read: page image p.2]. Pages 3-4 contain further internal inconsistencies: the Table 1 Pu-238 column sums to 608.93 b, not the printed 611.68 b; Ga is 2.75 b per atom in the table and 2.5 b in the text; voxel sizes are 'mm3 to cm3' (normal conductors) and 'up to dm3' (superconductors) [read: p.3-4]. No measurement of a CIci stack appears in the paper, in US 2010/0061503 A1, in US 2013/0121449 A1 or in the 2012 roadmap paper, and in 2012 the author wrote 'I have never published because of lack of coherent data' [read: roadmap slide 70]. The Klassen et al. chapter (a supporting group, an interested party for its own converters) gives an ideal-efficiency condition (electron kinetic energy equal to the electrostatic energy across the gap) and reports only about 1e-5 % to 0.01 % measured for the Yoshida gamma device, and 25% for U-235 planar structures through a one-sentence citation of Anufrienko et al. whose primary papers have not been read [read: research/files/InTech2012-Current-Research-Nuclear-Reactor-Technology.pdf pp.278-282].