Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 65, Number 2, January 2004
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 186 - 192 | |
Section | Electromagnetism, optics, acoustics, heat transfer, classical mechanics, and fluid dynamics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2003-10071-9 | |
Published online | 01 January 2004 |
“Turbulent” electrical transport in copper powders
Laboratoire de Physique, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon UMR 5672 - 46, allée d'Italie, 69007 Lyon, France
Corresponding author: Eric.Falcon@ens-lyon.fr
Received:
28
February
2003
Accepted:
6
November
2003
Compressed copper powder has a very large electrical resistance
(1), due to the oxide layer on grains (100
). We observe that its voltage-current U-I characteristics
are nonlinear, and undergo an instability, from an insulating to
a conductive state at relatively small applied voltages. Current
through the powder is then noisy, and the noise has interesting
self-similar properties, including intermittency and scale
invariance. We show that heat dissipation plays an essential role
in the physics of the system. One piece of evidence is that the
instability threshold always corresponds to the same Joule
dissipated power whatever the applied stress. In addition, we
observe long-time correlations which suggest that thermal
expansion locally creates or destroys contacts, and is the
driving mechanism behind the instability and noise observed in
this granular system.
PACS: 45.70.-n – Granular systems / 05.40.-a – Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion / 72.80.-r – Conductivity of specific materials
© EDP Sciences, 2004
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