1. Subscribersonhouse
    Fast and Curious
    slatington, pa, usa
    Joined
    28 Dec '04
    Moves
    53223
    10 May '17 15:48
    https://phys.org/news/2017-05-physicists-supercurrent-driven-potential.html

    Anyone know what the hell they are talking about? I'm flummoxed.
  2. Standard memberapathist
    looking for loot
    western colorado
    Joined
    05 Feb '11
    Moves
    9664
    10 May '17 17:39
    "The scientists explained that, by definition, the electrons in a chiral channel can only move in one direction. To induce supercurrent, an information transfer in the direction opposite to this direction is required."

    Reminds me of electron holes.
  3. Subscribersonhouse
    Fast and Curious
    slatington, pa, usa
    Joined
    28 Dec '04
    Moves
    53223
    10 May '17 17:55
    Originally posted by apathist
    "The scientists explained that, by definition, the electrons in a chiral channel can only move in one direction. To induce supercurrent, an information transfer in the direction opposite to this direction is required."

    Reminds me of electron holes.
    Electron holes occur in a crystal structure like doped silicon, the basis for computer chips. The hole in silicon doped with a conductor like Boron creates a charge different from the silicon atoms around the crystal. When doped, the boron takes the place of a silicon atom in the crystal and becomes a kind of way station for electrons because pure silicon is an insulator. But electrons can jump from one boron atom to another or it's opposite charge Phosphorus. The big three dopants in silicon are Arsenic, phosphorus and boron. I was a field service engineer for Varian ion implanters for 20 years, and that was the main job the ion implanter did, it slams one of those big three ions into a silicon wafer which buries itself under the surface under 1 micron deep. But that is only the first part of the story.

    Left at that it would be like a plowed field with jumbled up atoms of say boron at some low percentage mix with the silicon in an amorphous jumble 1 micron deep or so. The magic happens when the wafer is heated to around 1000 degrees C (way under the melting point for silicon) but the magic thing happens next, the crystal regrows, the jumbled up layer pops back into the crystal form of the rest of the wafer but now a boron or one of the others takes the place of a single silicon atom and permanetly stays in place bumping out a silicon atom so then after the 'annealing' process is finished the top layer is no longer an amorphous jumble but now back to a crystal form but with a dopant and that is enough to turn it from a very good insulator to a 'semi' conductor, much better conductor than silicon but much less conductance of say a wire.
    And that conduction takes place as the electric field given to the finished transistor is applied and electrons jump from dopant to dopant, either as a positive charge in the hole or a negative charge which had at one point been called 'hole flow'.

    But this thing they call a chiral channel, in electronics, that effect is done by diodes, allowing current flow in one direction but not the other.

    So I am baffled by what is going on here, how can information induce such a diode effect?

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