Diode Array
Charlie
property, for a chip that typically consists of billions of nanometer
scale diodes in consistent alignment parallel or, for higher voltage,
parallel series to rectify and aggregate nanowatt level internal radio
frequency thermal noise (also known as Johnson noise) within electronic
components (not involving antennas) into D.C. electricity. Many diodes
will overwhelm an electrical load's own thermal noise.
I began this revolutionary physics quest 40 years ago after free time
reading of Isaac Asimov on the Second Law of Thermodynamics (2LoT), one
of the most strongly believed Science Laws. Dr. Asimov's wonderful
writing led me to believe that 2LoT could be circumvented with
nanotechnology.
Less power is needed to sort the random power than is supplied by the
random thermal power. The power needed to alter the width of the
depletion region at the junction, which determines the conductivity of
a diode, is deducted from the thermal noise leaving net rectified power
as intermittent electrical power of one polarity. This means that a
variant of Maxwell's demon, Smoluchowski's trapdoor, applied to
electrons, will work.
The electrons do not have to supply "information energy" to move
within a diode. A macroscopically uniform temperature is
microscopically non uniform so nanometer scale devices have an endless
supply of negative entropy. The manufactured order of the diode and the
array will passively impose order on the electrons rectifying and
aggregating them resulting in a summation of the microscale negative
entropy to ay desired level. Inefficiently rectified intermittant
currents can be aggregated.
The electrons move uphill into the buss voltage within the source diode
so they loose momentum so they become colder. The loss of thermal
energy is equal to the gain of electrical energy released from the buss
when electricity is drawn off. Diode arrays can easily withstand open
circuit or short circuit conditions. In these cases no electrical
output or refrigeration is produced.
The concept was tested in 1993 where more power than ~2 nanowatts, the
power a single diode can deliver to a matched impedance load, 1 /2 kTB
watts where 1 / 2 accounts for rectification, k=Boltzmann's constant,
1.38 x 10^-23; T=temperature in Kelvins, ~300 and B=Bandwidth, ~1 THz,
the upper frequency limit of thermal noise, was measured from a chip
consisting of ~5,600 2.3 um dia Au dot anodes surrounded by SiO2 on a n
type GaAs substrate. The chip produced ~50 nanowatts as ~50 millivolts
across 50 K ohms, substrate positive, under professional test
conditions including a uniform temperature bath of stirred pure inert
oil, showing feasibility. Unfortunately the documentation of this test
is limited to a single page of test results.
A more advanced test requires the assembly of arrays containing a great
number of nanometer scale diodes as carbon nanotubes, selected to be
semiconducting, placed between Au and Al rails which would become anode
and cathode points.
A more practical diode array form is to nanofabricate short general ~2
nm dia. C nanotube anodes vertically spaced ~ 30nm in staggered rows on
an n type InSb substrate producing arrays of 10^11 diodes / cm^2 at
50% efficiency this means a power density of ~100 watta / cm2.
The diode array would greatly advance civilization. Future appliances
would have clean, cheap, widely available, safe, quiet, reliable, CO
and CO2 free power with or without a power grid. Air conditioning would
more logically release electricity. Air conditioning would produce
abundant electricity in warm climates. Food and medicine could be kept
cold reliably in stand alone chests. Crops could have better and
cheaper soil, watering, harvesting, and storage. Many kinds of electric
vehicles would become practical. These vehicles would be clean enough
to run in confined spaces. These vehicles would obtain their energy as
they moved so energy storage would not be needed. Diode array powered
shipping would be fast, cheap, and pervasive. Bird like automated
aircraft with million kilometre maintenance intervals unless shot or
snared could be built.Diode arrays in computers with minor inputs and
outputs would recycle the heat from the operating chips so the system
would not release heat or need external power while using lots of high
power high speed logic.
The diode array will not automatically prevent its applications from
becoming weapons. That is too much to ask of a technology. Diode arrays
may remove the frustration that leads to terrorism.. Civilization would
become more diversified because diode arrays would support campers,
people in fortresses, underground extensions of homes, nomadic bands,
teenage floaters, hermits, recluses, deep survivalists, shantytown
denizens, space travellers, underwater colonies as well as placid box
dwellers.
I want this to be commercialized without fussy licensing restrictions
on the diode array or its applications so all humanity can be involved
in its synergistic development. NonDisclosure Agreements and noncompete
requirements are not in this spirit.
I would like very soft patents that did little beyond acknowledge the
creative originality of inventors. Society should not be enmeshed in a
burdensome license tangle. Diode array applications become unpatentable
if they are widely published instead of being patented promptly and
they are developed by skilled craftsmen rather than creative people.
First, a prototype development group with great team strength needs to
emerge. Later, many application development groups should emerge. Micro
angel capitalization is the cleanest form of financing. A smooth, free,
open, and fair market should support useful applications using
commodity chips made by commodity equipment. The technical details
would diffuse to the educational system where the next generation of
application developers would learn about the craft efficiently. The
first developers would recover their specific research and development
costs with a modest positioning premium on their price. Positioning is
an effect that arises in consumers because of a need to reduce the
number of alternatives when getting through life assisted by their
purchases.
Profiteers may try to sell diode array based products at exorbitant
prices. The response is to aggressively bring in more reasonable
suppliers. The Federation will readily do this.
It may become illegal, as a sign of social compassion, to deprive a
debtor of basic appliances that are very important to basic survival
yet have little commercial value.
Aloha,
Charles M. Brown
808-828-0297
Kilauea Kauai Hawaii