Researchers Devise Method to Control Quantum Vacuum Fluctuations for Unidirectional Energy Transfer Between Two Nanodevices

By: William Brown, Biophysicist at the Resonance Science Foundation

A fundamental outcome of quantum field theory is the prediction of an ever-present non-zero energy in the vacuum state. In classical physics, a vacuum is totally devoid of energy or substance. In modern physics, all forces and associated particles are field-like, and their manifestation is a result of excitations of the respective quantum field. As such, according to quantum field theory, even in a vacuum there are quantum fields, and importantly these fields are always undergoing random excitations, even at the point where there should be zero energy—i.e., there are constitutive zero-point energy fluctuations.

These quantum vacuum energy fluctuations are not trivial, in the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) they are what gives hadrons, like the proton, their mass. Within QCD...