In generating electricity, electrons carry electric charge by acting as free agents. This means they bump and graze against other electrons as they travel collectively through transmission lines, generating friction and heat.
When electrons pair up, on the other hand, they glide through a material without friction. The "superconducting" behavior of these particles can occur in various materials. If such materials are allowed to superconduct close to room temperature, they can provide a key to creating devices with zero energy loss. Before making this happen, scientists must first understand how electrons pair up.
New Insight on Electron Behavior
New images of particles pairing up in atoms shed light on the tendency of electrons to pair in a superconducting material. These photographs captured by physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are the first snapshots of fermion pairs.
In this study, the researchers used potassium-40 atoms under conditions resembling electrons' behavior in particular superconducting materials. Headed by Professor Martin Zwierlein, the team developed a strategy to visualize a supercooled cloud of potassium-40 atoms. This technique allowed them to view the pairing up of particles even if a small distance separates them. Interesting patterns and behaviors were also observed, such as the formation of checkerboards disturbed by single electrons as they pass.
Zwierlein's team created and visualized various clouds of atoms thousands of times and translated each shot into a digital version that resembles a grid. In each grid, the location of both types of atoms is shown. Upon analyzing the sets of hundreds of snapshots, the team interpreted the way atoms show up in pairs.
According to the physicists, their observation not only provided blueprint of the formation of electron pairs in superconducting materials, but it also helps in describing how neutrons pair up in forming a very dense and churning superfluid found in neutron stars.
The event witnessed by the physicists was pairing behavior among the atoms, which was predicted by the Hubbard model. It is a widely held theory that is known for holding the key to the characteristics of electrons in high-temperature superconductors. Experts have used this model in testing the predictions of electron pair-up on superconducting materials, but they have never observed it directly until now.
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What are Fermions?
In physics, a fermion refers to a category of elementary particles that are very small and very light. It describes any particle with odd half-integer spin like ½, 3/2, etc. Examples of fermions include the most composite particles like protons and neutrons and quarks and leptons.
The atomic nucleus is a fermion depending on the number of its protons and neutrons, whether odd or even, respectively. Recent studies have allowed researchers to discover that fermions can lead to strange behavior in particular atoms under unusual conditions. In nuclear physics, fermion pairing is the basis for superconductivity and other phenomena.
A consequence of having an odd half-integer spin in fermions is its relation to the Pauli Exclusion Principle. This means that this category of elementary particles is not allowed to co-exist on the same date in the same region at the same time.
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