Pumping electrons: Look Ma! No heat!
A new way to make current flow in tiny electronic devices offers the possibility of eliminating the dissipation of energy as circuit-damaging heat.
References:
Altshuler, B.L., and L.I. Glazman. 1999. Pumping electrons. Science 283(March 19):1864.
Switkes, M., C.M. Marcus, et al. 1999. An adiabatic quantum electron pump. Science 283(March 19):1905.
Further Readings:
Niu, Q. 1990. Towards a quantum pump of electric charges. Physical Review Letters 64(April 9):1812.
Peterson, I. 1998. Electrons in boxes. Science News 153(April 11):236.
______. 1993. Packing electrons into an artificial atom. Science News 143(Feb. 20):118.
______. 1992. Quantum dot to dot. Science News 141(April 4):222.
Thouless, D.J. 1983. Quantization of particle transport. Physical Review B 27(May 15):6083.
Weiss, P. 1998. Taking charge of artificial molecules. Science News 154(July 18):36.
Sources:
Charles M. Marcus
Stanford University
Department of Physics
Stanford, CA 94305
Qian Niu
University of Texas at Austin
Physics Department
Campus Mail Code C1600
Austin, TX 78712
From Science News, Vol. 155, No. 12, March 20, 1999, p. 182. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.
