Collective tunneling of electrons. Free Technical Library News

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Collective electron tunneling

27.07.2009

In a superconductor, electrons are bound in pairs, and the length of this bond, the so-called coherence length, is several tens of nanometers. An interesting phenomenon is possible with them: quantum phase slip.

Its essence lies in the fact that from the position of quantum mechanics, electrons are to some extent connected in a pair, but to some extent not. Moreover, the ratio of these degrees fluctuates. If suddenly, at some point in time, the electrons turn out to be unbound, a small section of the superconductor will momentarily lose the ability to conduct superconducting current. When the diameter of this superconductor is much smaller than the coherence length, then it will completely lose superconductivity - other pairs will not be able to bypass the suddenly arisen obstacle.

Until now, it was believed that this can only happen with individual electron pairs. However, scientists from the University of Illinois, led by professors Alexei Bezryadin and Paul Golbrath, discovered a similar effect on a macroscopic scale: in a thin superconducting wire, one hundred thousand electron pairs immediately experienced phase slip. In this case, heat was released and the wire, having heated up, ceased to be superconducting.

According to the laws of classical mechanics, such behavior is impossible: all these electrons should not have gone into a new state, since they must first overcome the energy barrier. Obeying the same quantum laws, they managed to tunnel under it, and the whole group at once.

"Our results have confirmed that the laws of quantum mechanics work even for large systems," says Alexey Bezryadin.

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According to laboratory data, it was believed that the tropical mammal sloth sleeps almost 16 hours a day.

A group of German zoologists, by attaching sensors to three females living in freedom in Panama, proved that in nature these animals sleep a little more than nine and a half hours a day. And during this time, they may dream for almost two hours. In any case, equipment mounted on the heads of sloths and weighing only 11 grams showed that from time to time their eyeballs make quick movements under the eyelids, which is typical for humans in dreams.

It is possible that longer sleep in captivity is associated with the absence of predators and the need to look for food.

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