A Princeton University-led team of scientists has shown how electrons moving in certain solids can behave as though they are a thousand times more massive than free electrons, yet at the same time act as speedy superconductors.
The observation of these seemingly contradictory changes in the electron properties is critical to the understanding of how certain materials become superconducting, in which electrons can flow without resistance. Such materials could dramatically increase the efficiency of electrical power networks and speed up computers.
The concept of “heavy” electrons seems counterintuitive. The tiny particles flit through silicon chips to process information rapidly in digital electronics, and they flow with ease through copper wires carrying electricity to your desk lamp. But the Princeton research has revealed that a hard-to-measure process known as quantum entanglement determines the mass of electrons moving in a crystal and the delicate tuning of this entanglement can strongly alter the properties of a material.
Cool the electrons to far below room temperature in certain types of solid materials, and these flighty particles gain mass, acting like much heavier particles. Surprisingly, further cooling close to absolute zero makes these solids become superconducting, where the electrons, despite their heaviness, make a kind of perfect fluid that can flow without wasting any electrical power.
In a study to appear in the June 14 issue of the journal Nature, the Princeton-led team, which included scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of California-Irvine, used direct imaging of electron waves in a crystal. The researchers did so not only to watch the electrons gain mass but also to show that the heavy electrons are actually composite objects made of two entangled forms of the electron. This entanglement arises from the rules of quantum mechanics, which govern how very small particles behave and allow entangled particles to behave differently than untangled ones. Combining experiments and theoretical modeling, the study is the first to show how the heavy electrons emerge from such entanglement.
via Got mass? Scientists observe electrons become both heavy and speedy.
