Nanotechnologists at the University of Twente research institute MESA+ have discovered a unusual fundamental property of electrical currents in very small metal circuits. They demonstrate how electrons can spread out over the circuit like waves and cause interference effects at places where no electrical current is driven. The geometry of the circuit plays a key role in this so called nonlocal effect. The interference is a direct consequence of the quantum mechanical wave character of electrons and the specific geometry of the circuit. For designers of quantum computers it is an effect to take account of. The results are published in the British journal Scientific Reports.
Source: phys.org