Long predicted but never observed before, this fluid-like electron behavior could be leveraged for efficient low-power next-generation electronics. Water molecules, although being distinct particles, flow collectively as liquids, creating streams, waves, whirlpools, and other classic fluid phenom
Long predicted but never observed, fluid-like electron whirlpools could be leveraged for next-gen low-power electronics. Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT
It isn’t the same with electricity. While an electric current is likewise constructed of distinct particles — in this case, electrons — the particles are so small that any collective behavior among them is drowned out by larger influences as electrons pass through ordinary metals. However, in particular materials and under specific conditions, such effects fade away, and electrons can directly influence each other. In these specific instances, electrons can flow collectively like a fluid.
Levitov is a co-author of the new paper, along with Eli Zeldov and others at the Weizmann Institute for Science in Israel and the University of Colorado at Denver. In 2017, Levitov and colleagues at the University of Manchester reported signatures of such fluid-like electron-thin sheet of carbon onto which they etched a thin channel with several pinch points. They observed that a current sent through the channel could flow through the constrictions with little resistance. This suggested that the electrons in the current were able to squeeze through the pinch points collectively, much like a fluid, rather than clogging, like individual grains of sand.
The researchers synthesized pure single crystals of tungsten ditelluride, and exfoliated thin flakes of the material. They then used e-beam lithography andetching techniques to pattern each flake into a center channel connected to a circular chamber on either side. They etched the same pattern into thin flakes of gold — a standard metal with ordinary, classical electronic properties.
“We observed a change in the flow direction in the chambers, where the flow direction reversed the direction as compared to that in the central strip,” Levitov says. “That is a very striking thing, and it is the same physics as that in ordinary fluids, but happening with electrons on the nanoscale. That’s a clear signature of electrons being in a fluid-like regime.”
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