Article View: sci.materials
Article #71Negative resistance
From: Kent Goeking
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:15
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:15
25 lines
1639 bytes
1639 bytes
I would like to know if there are any materials that demonstrate negative resistance on the macroscopic scale. I am aware of this behavior in tunnel diodes but I wonder if it might not occur in other structures. For example, it seems plausible to me that the conductivity (albeit small) of a dielectric material may be sensitive to the electric field in unusual ways. If leakage currents are primarily carried along grain boundaries then perhaps if the material was piezoelectric, under a field these current paths might become more restricted due to increased internal stresses. Hence the resistance would increase with applied field. A plot of V vs I in this case would have negative slope and thus Ohms law would be rewritten V=-IR. Anyone know of such a material? Is it possible to design some sort of composite? Not sure what applications it would be good for but sure would be a unique capability. -- ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ Kent Goeking (kwg@creare.com)| "We are continually faced with a series of Creare Inc., P.O. 71 | opportunities brilliantly disguised as Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 | insoluble problems" - John W. Gardner
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!gatech!psuvax1!hsdndev!dartvax!fluent!creare!kwg From: kwg@creare.COM (Kent Goeking) Newsgroups: sci.materials,sci.electronics Subject: Negative resistance Message-ID: <13404@creare.COM> Date: 30 Jul 92 13:15:55 GMT Reply-To: kwg@creare.UUCP (Kent Goeking) Followup-To: sci.materials Organization: Creare Inc., Hanover, NH Lines: 25