Charged particle spectra of palladium thin films during low energy deuterium ion implantation

An effort was made to create cold fusion in thin films of palladium under low energy bombardment with high currents of deuterium ions in a vacuum chamber. Samples were monitored with a silicon surface barrier detector in order to detect any massive energetic reaction products. The films were deposited by sputtering onto smooth silicon substrates, and consisted of approximately 130 Å of palladium sandwiched by thin layers of high chrome stainless steel. These films were bombarded with deuterium ions at an energy of 1.5 keV with a current density of about 0.5 mA/cm². The sample temperature was monitored during implantation, and was subject to some measure of control using a combination of beam heating and cooling with flowing liquid nitrogen. Several counts were observed to appear in the high energy region of the spectra which did not appear during an extended background spectrum, however, the source of these counts is unclear at this time.