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Bimetallic wires reduce current strength

21.11.2012

A team of physicists from McGill University, in collaboration with researchers from General Motors, has demonstrated an unexpected effect: the strength of the electric current in microcircuits can be significantly reduced if the wires are made up of two dissimilar metals. This discovery allows solving the main problem of nanoelectronics.

The size of electronic circuits is shrinking every year. Everyone can see this steady progress: today you can carry in your pocket a computer with computing capabilities that 20 years ago required equipping several rooms with equipment. However, a serious problem arose in the way of further development of electronics: the closer the components of microcircuits are to the size of atoms, the more they are affected by quantum effects that change the nature of the flow of electricity. Here you can use the garden hose analogy: in a large diameter hose, the water pressure is constant, but if you reduce it to a diameter of a few atoms, the water will begin to “stumble” and stop slowing down in proportion to the cross-sectional area of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthe hose.

To create computer chips of the future, engineers must find a way to ensure that electrons behave predictably in metal conductors only a few atoms in diameter.

To solve this problem, American scientists with the highest precision assembled a conductor consisting of two metals - tungsten and gold. As a result, the differences in the electronic structure of the two metals led to a fourfold decrease in the current strength. The researchers found that the defects generated by the mechanical bonding of two materials can reduce the diameter of the conductors and reduce the current, which ultimately leads to the miniaturization of electronic components and reduce the risk of overheating.

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Bank card will lose its magnetic stripe 17.02.2014

The US banking system plans to replace obsolete and technically vulnerable magnetic stripe plastic credit cards, which are now used by residents of the country for cashless payments, with a new type of card. According to the Wall Street Journal, this modernization will be carried out everywhere in October 2015.

New cards will necessarily acquire chip-and-PIN technology, which has been used by banking structures in the rest of the world for several years. No matter how surprising it may seem, a magnetic stripe card is still common in the United States, despite the huge number of fraudulent counterfeiting and illegal withdrawal of amounts from the owners' accounts without their knowledge and consent. There will be no more magnetic stripes, no more black line reading.

Americans who have traveled extensively in Europe, especially in the last few years, have noted that the credit card system in the United States is seen even by them as too old-fashioned and behind the modern trends in this area in comparison with their European counterparts. Often, tourists may experience some difficulties with their "credit cards" while abroad, as in Europe some time ago they abandoned the magnetic stripe due to too high statistics for hacking such cards. However, credit and debit cards, which are still in use for cashless payments in the United States, according to experts, are technically behind the rest of the world by 10 years.

The new type of plastic cards will have a microchip instead of a magnetic stripe and will require a PIN code from the owner when performing the payment procedure. Such a plastic protection system has a number of advantages and is much safer for several reasons. Firstly, the mandatory request for a PIN code will prevent erroneous or deliberate debiting of the amount, for example, by service personnel who make a payment using your card. In a more advanced version with a chip-and-PIN system, you are required to provide a terminal into which you insert a plastic card and immediately enter the "pin code", instead of passing the card into the wrong hands without asking for a "security code". This will eliminate both the factor of the use of your funds by personnel in a dishonorable way, and will protect you from the modifications of terminals that are common today, which easily copy data from a magnetic stripe.

According to recent estimates, hackers managed to steal 70 million credit card numbers from cashless transactions during the peak shopping period from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. Attackers "modernized" terminals for receiving classic plastic cards with a magnetic stripe and copied information from it, which allowed them to pay in the future with the help of other people's funds. With a chip-and-PIN system, this operation will be much more difficult. At least, in order to "copy" the chip and find out the owner's password, much more effort and skill, as well as technical devices, will be required. If a system with a chip and a mandatory password cannot completely protect card users from fraud, then it will at least significantly affect the statistics of such thefts.

In addition, the magnetic strip has become too "tidbit" for hackers, as it can be hacked even by not very highly skilled villains. In France, there has been an 80% reduction in credit card fraud with the transition to a chip-and-PIN system, although these statistics are rather vague due to the unofficial source of their original publication.

As for the CIS countries, here, so far, crimes with bank cards have not reached such proportions as in Europe and the United States. Therefore, it is unlikely that any qualitative changes in this direction are expected in the near future. In addition, the culture of non-cash payment in our country is not as well developed as abroad. Therefore, outside of large cities, you may encounter the problem of both cashing out "plastic" and paying with it for services rendered and goods purchased.

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