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Science News

Researchers Prove Existence Of New Type Of Electron Wave 60

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the welle-of-information dept.
ScienceDaily is reporting that physicists at the University of New Hampshire have discovered the existence of a new type of electron wave on metal surfaces. "The acoustic surface plasmon, which will have implications for developments in nano-optics, high-temperature superconductors, and the fundamental understanding of chemical reactions on surfaces. [...] 'The existence of this wave means that the electrons on the surfaces of copper, iron, beryllium and other metals behave like water on a lake's surface,' says Diaconescu, a postdoctoral research associate in the Condensed Matter Group of the physics department at UNH. 'When a stone is thrown into a lake, waves spread radially in all directions. A similar wave can be created by the electrons on a metal surface when they are disturbed, for instance, by light.'"
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Researchers Prove Existence Of New Type Of Electron Wave More

Researchers Prove Existence Of New Type Of Electron Wave

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  • told you so (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by User 956 ( 568564 )
    Researchers Prove Existence Of New Type Of Electron Wave

    A ha... so that's how they accomplished that perpetual energy machine. [slashdot.org]

  • From TFA (Score:5, Funny)

    by Silver Sloth ( 770927 ) on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @05:11PM (#19747885)

    If this is the case, it is a great advantage that it is now possible to study the plasmons on surfaces, where they is much easier to probe them than inside the material.
    I'm sure it are.
  • ...who have said that their speaker cable is designed to minimize "skin effect" have some science behind them. It has only take +20 years of this being touted as "science" in the speaker cable industry. Now there is some real science behind it.

    • ...who have said that their speaker cable is designed to minimize "skin effect" have some science behind them. It has only take +20 years of this being touted as "science" in the speaker cable industry. Now there is some real science behind it.

      FTA:

      ..."When a stone is thrown into a lake, waves spread radially in all directions. A similar wave can be created by the electrons on a metal surface when they are disturbed, for instance, by light."

      Skin Effect [wikipedia.org]

      Seems like completely a different properties/behaviour, but, correct me if I'm wrong...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 )
      The skin effect always was real. It's just irrelevant with small (i.e. less than an inch across) conductors at audio frequency range.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by SlowDancing ( 687920 )

      A similar wave can be created by the electrons on a metal surface when they are disturbed, for instance, by light.

      New for 2008! 100% optically opaque insulation prevents distortion of your signal from ambient photon fields.

  • The SKIN effect , big deal , just because you cannot feel or hear
    the effect , does not mean it does not exist. Frequency people.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by salec ( 791463 )
      Skin effect is effectively, in a nutshell, variation of conductor's resistance as function of signal's frequency. Strictly speaking, it ought to make harmonic distortions. However, this effect is quite negligible in signals whose frequencies are in audio spectrum.

      OTOH, there are people who can positively recognize the difference by listening. Obvious conclusion is that our theory of auditory experience is incomplete in some way. There is something somewhere we've chosen not to look.

      My first bet was on signa

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by salec ( 791463 )
        Sorry, I had a large pause in the middle of writing the post. Unfinished sentence in the middle was meant to become: "Fourier analysis can break down periodic signals into harmonic components, but mixing all the ingredients back in may produce quite different signal envelope. That fact is deliberately used in DSP to simplify calculations."
      • Skin effect is effectively, in a nutshell, variation of conductor's resistance as function of signal's frequency. Strictly speaking, it ought to make harmonic distortions.

        It distort the equalization - higher frequencies will be attenuated more than lower ones - but it's a linear phenomenum, so it won't introduce harmonic distortion or intermodulation.

  • This actually makes intuitive sense, when think about the eddy currents that I've heard exist within a conductor's cross section - why a circular conductor works better that a rectangular conductor.

  • "new" electron wave? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @05:44PM (#19748131)
    Somehow I doubt the wave is new. It's only our understanding of it that is new.

  • Sorry, Not New (Score:3, Informative)

    by YetAnotherBob ( 988800 ) on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @06:00PM (#19748207)
    Scientific American covered this in an article 2 months ago. (print version yet!)

    It is cool though. There may be some nice tech possibilities here. The SA article mentioned higher density HDDs and some chip interface effects. Maybe even a direct optical/electronic interface. Still, the work was done over a year ago. Reports have been coming in. Just not a new report here.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kmac06 ( 608921 )
      It's being published in Nature today. That means there's something new going on here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by theckhd ( 953212 )
        Not necessarily. The turnaround time between submission and publication of a paper in Nature can be on the order of several months. I haven't read the Scientific American article the GP is referring to, but it's entirely possible that they were reporting on the same experiment. It's common to give talks at professional conferences after the paper has been submitted and accepted, but before it's actually been published. Scientific American may have based their article on the proceedings from such a confe

  • 20 year old news? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @07:19PM (#19748921)
    Can anyone explain what's new here? My 20-year old text book on surface physics talks about
    surface plasmons, and I heard about acoustic (bulk) plasmons in my undergrad studies min the mid-90:s.

    What's new, the existence of acoustic plasmons at surfaces?

    I, who have a PhD in surface physics don't care, so I think 99.99% of even slashdot, don't care.

    • This is true. Its just another piece of PR crap from a second-rate university. They have seen an already-observed phenomenon in a mew material...could have been predicted.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by geekoid ( 135745 )
        Oh? can you name one other experiment that proved this? No? STFU.

        Yes, the idea has been around on the theoretical basis, but not observed.

    • I, who have a PhD in surface physics ...
      So, how's life as Lead Fry Cook at McDonalds?
      (I kid, I kid)...
    • I find it interesting that Ivor Catt discussed surface plasmons in capacitors in 1978: http://www.ivorcatt.org/icrwiworld78dec1.htm [ivorcatt.org]

      In column one of his article he states: "Electric current enters the capacitor through a wire and then spreads out across the surface of the plate in the same way as ripples flow out from a stone dropped in a pond."

      What's my point on this? Well, it's known in audio design that the design and construction of capacitors radically affects quality of the sound signals. There are

  • Continued Diaconescu... (Score:4, Funny)

    by autophile ( 640621 ) on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @09:14PM (#19749745)

    'When a stone is thrown into a lake, waves spread radially in all directions. A similar wave can be created by the electrons on a metal surface when they are disturbed, for instance, by light.'

    Continued Diaconescu, 'This is sure to make a splash in the community. Our detractors have been trying to sink our efforts, and have been making waves at the conferences about this effect not being real, but this will certainly throw them in the deep end. The real lifesaver, though, will be our refined dataset, which is in stark contrast to our previous watered-down set. They will drown in the data.'

  • maybe water surfaces behave like electrons.
  • I modeled surface plasmons on PEC surfaces in 1999 using dirac-delta plane-waves and FDTD analysis. In fact, I think there has been a lot of research in using physical optics methods to better enhance numerical modeling of EM scattering and surface waves. The military has been conducting research in RCS reduction by using these methods to characterize how incident pulse radars set up radiating fields on surfaces.

    Absolutely nothing new here. Most of this stuff is in Junior-level EM texts.

  • A disturbance... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anpheus ( 908711 ) on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @11:09PM (#19750441)
    I sense a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of electrons cried out in waves, and were silenced by destructive interference.
  • "A similar wave can be created by the electrons on a metal surface when they are disturbed, for instance, by light."

    I get disturbed by light too - like when I am asleep and someone turns on the light.

    But I don't usually wave, I am more likely to punch.
  • "The acoustic surface plasmon, which will have implications for developments in nano-optics, high-temperature superconductors, and the fundamental understanding of chemical reactions on surfaces."

    What about the understanding of nuclear reactions [lenr-canr.org] on metal surfaces ?
  • Gee, before reading this I used to think that Plasmon was some type of baby food. http://www.plasmon.it/ [plasmon.it]
  • And you all made fun of me when I bought the $100/foot stereo cables after the sales guy explained surface electron effects to me. See, I knew he was as smart as he sounded ;-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      UNfortunaly the plasmoidal capacitence fluxuation wears doen the smoth serface soi it is microscopically bumpopy, so you need to by some more.

      Luck for you I have some cables that don't experience those effects. For a mere 150.00 a foot I would be happy to sell you some...of course, at that price I'm cutting my own throat.

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