Image of the week: can you hear electrons whisper?

By Jade Holt on April 11, 2016

The whispering gallery effect was discovered over a century ago, but as well as in sound, this effect can be seen in electromagnetic, optical and x-ray waves. The waves can attenuate over long distances so have the potential to be harnessed in a variety of applications, such as biosensors and optical filters.

This week’s image comes from a recent paper which uses electrons formed by conjugated polymer nano-rings as resonators to create whispering galley modes (WGMs). G Reecht et al present the model in more detail providing analytical expressions of the wave functions in the framework of a simple square potential with cylindrical symmetry and show how this model leads to 2D electron WGMs. The image is taken from a constant height conductance map of the 12-oligothiophene nano-ring at different bias voltages.