Physicists have seen electrons form whirlpools for the first time.
Scientists have been predicting this behavior for a long time. It could be the key to making next- generation electronics more efficient.
According to one of the researchers behind the new study, seeing is believing, because there has been no direct proof of electron waves.
It's a clear sign of being in a new regime, where electrons behave as a fluid, not as individual particles.
electrons flowing like a fluid results in more energy being delivered to the end point instead of being lost en route because of things such as impurities in the material
Levitov says that when electrons go in a fluid state, they're interested in designing low-power electronics. It is another step in that direction.
The Weizmann Institute for Science in Israel and the University of Colorado at Denver collaborated on a project.
We already know that electrons can bounce off each other and flow without resistance in superconductors, but this is not a true example of electrons flowing like a fluid.
Water can be taken for example. According to the principles of fluid dynamics, water molecule travel as one, carrying each other across a surface and making streams and whirlpools.
An electric current should be able to do the same, but any collective behavior of electrons is usually ignored by the elements. Distractions knock electrons around as they travel and stop them from acting like fluid.
The problem was that no one had been able to prove that this was the case.
The two fundamental features of a fluid are linear flow and the formation of eddies.
Levitov and colleagues at the University of Manchester were the first to observe the first use of Graphene. Levitov and his team showed that an electrical current could flow through a pinch point like fluid in sheets of carbon.
The second feature was not watched by anyone. The researchers write that the most striking and ubiquitous feature in the flow of regular fluids has not yet been observed.
The team took pure, single crystals of an ultra- clean material and sliced them off.
The pattern was etched into a central channel with a circular chamber on either side. The pattern on the gold was the same as the pattern on the ditelluride and therefore acted as a control.
Aharon-Steinberg et al. are from Nature.
The diagram on the left shows how electrons flowed in the experiment. The image on the right is a simulation of how electrons would behave.
They ran an electrical current through the material to see how the electrons were flowing.
The electrons flowed through the maze without changing direction even after the current had passed through the side chambers.
The electrons flowed through the channel and then swirled into each side chamber, creating whirlpools, before returning to the main channel.
The flow direction in the chambers was different than in the central strip.
It is the same physics as that in ordinary fluids, but happening with electrons on the smallest scale. That is a sign of electrons being in a fluid regime.
Aharon-Steinberg et al. are from Nature.
The left column shows how the electrons flowed through the ditelluride compared to the right column.
It's not something you'll see in your home gadgets any time soon, because this experiment was done with a specialized material. There were limits on the size of the chambers.
The press release states that this is the first direct visualization of swirling vortices. This confirmation that electrons can act as a fluid could help engineers understand how to harness this potential in their devices.
The research was published in a journal.
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