{"id":34238,"date":"2017-02-06T18:24:37","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T02:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/scientists-measure-single-quantum-of-heat"},"modified":"2017-04-24T18:53:36","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T01:53:36","slug":"scientists-measure-single-quantum-of-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/scientists-measure-single-quantum-of-heat","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Measure Single Quantum of Heat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7yjL_TDP_Ss?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>IBM researchers have established experimental proof of a previously difficult-to-prove law of physics, and in so doing may have pointed to a way to overcome many of the heat management issues faced in today\u2019s electronics. Researchers at IBM Zurich have been able to take measurements of the thermal conductance of metallic quantum point contacts made of gold. No big deal, you say? They conducted measurements at the single-atom level, at room temperature\u2014the first time that\u2019s ever been done.<\/p>\n<p>These measurements confirm the Wiedemann\u2013Franz law, which predicts that the smallest amount of heat that can be carried across a metallic junction \u2014 a single quantum of heat \u2014 is directly proportional to the quantum of electrical conductance through the same junction. By experimentally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibm.com\/blogs\/research\/2017\/02\/ibm-scientists-measure-the-heat-transfer-through-single-atoms\/\">confirming this law<\/a>, it can now be used with confidence to predict and to explore nanoscale thermal and electrical phenomena affecting materials down to the size of few atoms or a single molecule.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough the Wiedemann\u2013Franz law is predicted, and should be valid for certain metals, it has turned out to be difficult to prove it when you go to the nanoscale,\u201d explained Bernd Gotsmann, an IBM scientist and one of the lead researchers on this work, in an e-mail interview with <em><i>IEEE Spectrum<\/i><\/em>. \u201cWe think the difficulty is mainly a sign of the challenges related to the measurement of thermal transport on small scales.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/nanoclast\/semiconductors\/nanotechnology\/scientists-measure-single-quantum-of-heat\">http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/nanoclast\/semiconductors\/nanotechno...um-of-heat<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IBM researchers have established experimental proof of a previously difficult-to-prove law of physics, and in so doing may have pointed to a way to overcome many of the heat management issues faced in today\u2019s electronics. Researchers at IBM Zurich have been able to take measurements of the thermal conductance of metallic quantum point contacts made [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49028,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34238\/revisions\/49028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}