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Energy harvesting from noise

Thursday, November 22, 2012 20:33

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From NextBigFuture.com

Physics World – A single hydrogen molecule has been used to “push” an object much more massive than itself. So say researchers in Germany and Spain who have used a phenomenon called stochastic resonance to extract useful energy from “noise”. Their experiments involve using an atomic force microscope tip mounted on a flexible, spring-like cantilever and the processes at play might be exploited to power up nanometre-sized machines – or even much larger devices.

Stochastic – or random – resonance is well known in a range of complex systems, especially in living organisms, and is responsible for processes such as energy pumping. It allows weak periodic signals to be strengthened by surrounding noisy signals that arise from random fluctuations in the system. These ubiquitous fluctuations can come from temperature changes or from the movement of electrons and photons. The resonance occurs when random peaks in the noisy signal coincide with regular peaks in the periodic signal.