Charging capacitors from thermal fluctuations using diodes
journals.aps.org
journals.aps.org
> Of course, real diodes leak in the low conducting region, and the system will eventually relax to thermal equilibrium.
... but at the end they have Appendix F with an "experiment" on a "TSMC chip" showing an impulse to 300mV.
https://scitechdaily.com/long-considered-impossible-in-physi...
- Author: "They can also operate in many environments, making them particularly attractive for wireless sensors in locations where changing BATTERIES is inconvenient or expensive, such as an underground pipe system or interior aircraft cable ducts";
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We really live in a "bullshit amplified by social" society, they took a scientific publication about a phenomenon that needs peer reviews , verifications, etc and transform it in "We have the technology to recharge your phone WITH THE HEAT of YOUR HAND, licenses available !"
The paper is pay-walled so could not read the mandatory discussion on 2nd law of thermodynamics. The underlying idea is not new. Brillouin published Can the Rectifier Become a Thermodynamical Demon? in 1950 [0] [1]. I hope these are cited in the paper.
[0] https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.78.627....
[1] https://pubs.aip.org/aip/apl/article-abstract/14/2/54/41611/...
The paper you mention is indeed cited.
Huh. Is this for real? Most of the discussion assumes an ideal diode. Real diodes have diode drop. All this is powered by very small fluctuations, right. They'd have to overcome the diode drop.
(There is a real component called an "ideal diode", which is a power MOSFET with control circuitry to turn it on when the voltage is higher in the forward direction. MOSFETs have ON resistances in millohms, which is better than diodes can do. Often used with solar powered battery chargers, large DC-DC converters, etc. Not sure that applies here.)
It seems that this is the way Douglas Adams' Finite Improbability Generator functions. [1]
1: "The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood"