Global Free Energy Blog

DC current measurements for home made diode:

12:10pm today, 10.3pA

4:00pm today, 19.4pA

It seems to be jumping back and forth between ~ 10pA & 20pA.

Well this is interesting. The homemade diode current just tested a few minutes ago has made a jump to 20.6pA. Is this caused by an “energy jump?”  This jumping to various levels has been been observer numerous times in diode experiments, but has always settled down at ~ 10pA.

It should be pointed out that there was a change in the setup where the element has not been shorted, but connected to the 165 Mohm load. It is now shorted again.

It’s possible the homemade diode still has a small amount of remaining *stored* energy, and releases this above the 10pA constant by jumping to the next energy level, 20pA. And perhaps when this stored energy is released, it will drop back down to 10pA.

I don’t view the 10pA of current (@ whatever voltage) that occurs over time as a release of *stored* energy. It’s a stream of energy that seems to come from an endless reservoir beyond the component / element.

It just occurred to me that isolating the diodes or piezos from AC electrical noise (Johnson noise) is probably not going to work in terms of getting past the 10pA level. The parallel capacitance of my piezo is ~ 30nF. And the resistance of this piezo at such low current levels is in the giga ohm region. Therefore, the parallel capacitance is sufficient to short Johnson noise down to at least 0.01 Hz! So it does not seem to be related to AC electrical noise.

Obviously two piezos that are not connected to each other will *each* produce 10pA. IOW, they will not effect each other. So if it’s only due to electrical isolation, then it must be DC current isolation. Hmm, actually that’s easy to test! Just place a low leakage capacitor between (not across) each element. This will block DC current between each element. This is actually based on an old theory of mine, where the DC voltage fluctuates between elements over time, and this alone might disturb each other to some degree and prevent the net current from going beyond 10pA DC. I don’t know, it’s an old theory that I no longer care for. Anyhow, if it’s true that each element needs to be electrically DC isolated, then it will be unfortunate, as it could be difficult to isolate each component DC wise and still collect the 10pA from all parts.

So this is tested by placing a low leakage capacitor between each element. Of course you can’t get more than 10pA in totality, but each element hopefully will still produce it’s 10pA of current. If it does not, then it’s not AC or DC electrical current. If that turns out to be the case, then what is it? I mean, surely they can still be in the same room and each produce 10pA.

This morning the homemade was producing 9.7 pA.

This is such an exciting moment for me!!! Maybe I should wait another day to be certain before celebrating, but it’s looking great so far. Would you believe I’m celebrating over 10pA? That is correct, a few minutes ago the homemade diode was producing 10pA DC current!!!

This is so important for the research. It means we do not need any fancy or expensive diodes, piezos, electrets, etc. It means *all* undisturbed matter produces ~ 10pA of DC current so long as the net circuit resistance is low enough. For example, if the resistance of the junction (contact between dissimilar materials) is say 10 ohms, and you want to measure this 10pA of current, then the resistance of the rest of the circuit (e.g., your meter or a shunt resistor) must be appreciable less than 10 ohms. That’s why it’s extremely difficult to see this current in ordinary matter. To see this effect it’s best to use an insulator.

Lets say we take three fine powders and mix them together. One of powders act as insulator; e.g., quartz. The other two are the dissimilar elements. Bond the particles together with heat. Once cooled down and allowed to recover, within the mixture exists microscopic current loops of ~ 10pA.

So how do you get the currents to align. That is simple. While the materials are heated up to the proper temperature, an intense electric field is applied. If the field is intense enough, and the temperature is correct, the electric junctions (dissimilar materials) will physically align given enough time This is an exact description of the Crystal batteries made by Marcus Reid & John Hutchison.

Once the homemade diode is finally confirmed as producing a stabilized 10pA DC current, the final goal is to find a material that will properly isolate the microscopic electric junctions while still allow for DC current.

Good news so far. … knock on wood!

About 1 or 2 hours ago the measured current was 7.9pA DC.

A few minutes ago the measured current was 9.0pA DC.

The current obviously bounced and ~ 2 years of diode testing experience tells me that it’s trying to maintain the 10pA. Lets hope this homemade diode has what it takes to succeed. The diodes experiments showed that the current would often stay around 10pA, and then suddenly jump to a lower level such as 5pA or 2.5pA due to being measured to often. When the measurements were cut back, then the current would eventually go back up to 10pA.

Wow, the homemade diode current has made a sudden drop to 21pA! Just this morning, about 4.5 hours ago it was 79pA. This sudden rapid drop in current has me a bit concerned because at this rate it will go below 10pA. Although, I have seen a lot of diode experiments where the current will drop in jumps, as if there are energy levels.

Another option is the homemade diode was disturbed, and is in the common slow decay state, in which case it will go below 10pA, but given enough time will recover.

Another option is the homemade diode is to poorly made, and perhaps the built in electric field is too weak, and therefore is insufficient to sustain the 10pA DC current.

The end result of the recent magnetic experiments:

When two dissimilar materials come in contact, a junction is formed (conventional physics). This is the diode junction, and there exists an intense internal electric field. So when two dissimilar materials are in contact, a junction is formed. Such homemade diodes do not make good non-linear diodes for a lot of technical reasons, but still the internal electric field exists in such homemade diodes.

Piezos also have an intense internal electric field. So there is a correlation between diodes, piezos, and the recent experiments that are homemade diodes. It is believed that this internal electric field produces an effect that is responsible for the DC current & voltage. It was learned in the years of diode experiments that the DC voltage was relative to the diodes resistance; i.e., twice the resistance = twice the voltage. The reason is seen in the mysterious 10pA of current. Voltage is R * I, and if I is constant, then voltage is relative to the resistance.

Most of the homemade diodes produced hundreds of milli volts. The current was typically in the low nano volt region to high micro volt region, but this was initial current, not the stabilized *DC* current. For example, the last setup initially produced over 500pA, but the longer it was connected to a load, the load the current dropped. This morning it was down to 79pA, and is still dropping. It’s still unknown if it will stabilize at 10pA or continue to drop. It could go far below 10pA, which was seen in countless diodes due to being disturbed, but these diodes would go back up to 10pA when left undisturbed.

The 10pA may not sound to good for most people, but from my point of view it’s very important! The reason being is that I the diode and piezo represent the *fundamental* component. So this allows us to study the fundamental effect. Normally when such components are connected in parallel the current remains at 10pA, very unusual indeed! So the goal would be to find a way of getting such fundamental components to go beyond 10pA. This proves it’s not due to electrochemical reactions. Paralleling electrochemical batteries results in more current.

So far it appears the size of the diode or piezo is unimportant. I have a diode with a junction that’s ~ 1cm x 1cm square that produces no more DC current than a microscope diode. The homemade diode that’s ~ 10 cm square appears to be no better. This means that when we figure out how to *isolate* each component to go beyond the 10pA limit, then microscopic particles (components) can be used to make a normal size battery that produces voltage & high current. This is probably the result of Marcus Reid & John Hutchison are doing. IOW, part of the materials used in their crystal batteries is somehow isolating the individual particles to allow the current to go beyond 10pA.

There needs to be some form of *isolation* between each fundamental particle, and that’s the type of experiments I’ll be doing. Maybe it needs to be Johnson noise isolation. Maybe it needs to be high frequency temperature fluctuation isolation. Maybe it needs to be magnetic or electric fluctuation isolation. Who knows, but working with fundamental components is important.

The following experimental updates occurred over the past several days, but to sum it all up, it appears that the *main* effect is caused by the contact of dissimilar materials, the same effect that produces the diode. When two dissimilar materials come into contact, electrons flow to one side, forming an electric field (same as the diode). It is believed that this electric field causes an effect that results in DC current & voltage. This would be an unknown effect. It is still unknown if the magnetic field contributes to the net DC current & voltage.

Common white paper that is soaked with water: 0.75 volts

Wax paper: 0.50 to 0.54 volts

Wax paper, flipped (in case it’s only sided wax paper): 0.50 to 0.54 volts

With transparent plastic, relatively thick: 0.36 volts

All of these recent measurements were done with an electrometer.

It’s a guarantee that soaked wet paper will produce a lot of electrochemical reactions, but if this is electrochemical then I would have expected the experiment using plastic as the insulator to produce no measurable voltage. For example, I have some extremely dead 1.5V Alkaline batteries that produce a few milli volts.

[2009/10/26 note: It's now known that the more the materials are disturbed (e.g., from measurements) the lower the voltage drops. Therefore the 0.36 volts measured where plastic was used as the insulator is most likely considerably higher if it was taken before the other measurements. It was difficult to notice if the voltage dropped much when flipping the wax paper, as the voltage was fluctuating a lot at the time. Although I did see a gradual decline in most of such experiments.]

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What’s interesting about diodes & piezos is that regardless of how many are placed in parallel, they still produce 10pA. Well, that is, when the diode or piezos have stabilized. Initially they seem to store charge, far more than their capacitance, so after that’s been discharged, they will settle down near 10 pA.

Maybe the magnet experiments will be the same, after being shorted long enough, they will produce 10pA.

I think the soaked wet white paper was mostly electrochemical reactions. The wax paper had some electrochemical reactions. And I’d expect no measurable reactions in the plastic. So where is this 0.36 volts coming from? Maybe from metal to metal reactions??? BTW, the metal & plastic was cleaned.

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What’s interesting is the magnet experiment with plastic as the insulator that was producing 0.36 volts yesterday is now dead. So far that’s showing the same characteristics as diodes & piezos. That is, they are easily disturbed, especially diodes. So much so that even taking too many measurements with a voltage meter can place them in the disturbed state for a long time.

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A metal steel bolt was placed against a disc NdFeB magnet, separated by paper. Here are the measurements:

It started out producing 100mV, but continued to slowly *increase*. It went up to 150mV, and then began slowly declining. Okay, so far this is a matches diode and piezo experiments. The EE, by profession, who connected his electrometer to a data logger (months ago), saw the same thing where the voltage slowly increased, and then it slowly decreased.

After reaching the 150mV peak, it began to slowly decrease. I moved the probe wires that are connected to the magnets around to different locations. The voltage slightly jittered around a bit, nothing unexpected, but didn’t make much difference. I then took everything apart, separated the magnets. Put it back together except in *different locations* on the paper (fresh areas in case it’s due to electrochemical reactions), and the voltage was ~ 2mV; i.e., dead. It appears to be “disturbed.”

So maybe the voltage is not due to the paper. Moving it to different locations on the paper would not change nothing. Or maybe the chemicals in the magnet were drained. Fine, so I flipped the magnets to the other side. So it’s using the other side of magnet, which is an unused surface. No change! The voltage was also low. It’s as if handling the magnets and/or paper disturbes then, which is also seen in diode & piezo experiments. There are a lot of ways to disturb the diodes– rapid temp changes, appreciable current. If the diode casing is transparent, then shining low light levels on it could easily place it in the disturbed state for a long time.

I then cleaned the magnets, and tried it again. Same thing, low voltage.

There’s something mysterious going on that so far matches the diode & piezo experiments. The only two final experiments is to see if it recovers when left undisturbed, and see if the current will drop & settle to 10pA when shorted long enough.

The NdFeB magnets are 0.47″ diameter, 0.12″ thick, and have a metal coating that’s probably the typical nickel. The white paper thickness is 5 mills.

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Here’s another experiment using large Ferrite magnets instead of NdFeB magnets. The same type of 5 mill white paper was used, and used electrometer to measure voltage,

First, 30mV. Remained relatively constant except with a *slow* decline.

Reversed the clips to see if the voltage flipped: -10mV.  Remained relatively constant except with a *slow* decline.

Reversed again: 9mV.  Remained relatively constant except with a *slow* decline.

Reversed again: -8mV.  Remained relatively constant except with a *slow* decline.

Reversed again: 2mV.  Remained relatively constant except with a *slow* decline.

As you can see, the polarity reversed, and with each reversal of the probe clip leads the voltage reversed, and also the voltage decreased by noticeable amounts each time. So far this matches the diode & piezo behavior.

My best wild guess is that the NdFeB PM’s are ~~ 5 Tesla, and the Ferrite magnets are ~~ 1 Tesla, but that could be way off.

The Ferrite magnets are rectangular, measuring 1.85 x 0.96″ and 0.39″ thick.

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Two steel nuts were placed against each other without any magnets, but separated by paper. The produced voltage was ~ 1mV. There is most likely a hundred or so gauss in the steel nuts, residual magnetic field.

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The two Ferrite magnets separated by paper is now up to 80mV. The parts sit undisturbed without the clip leads. So it’s not connected to anything. And then every so often I’ll connect the electrometer clip leads to take a quick measurement. As comparison, most diodes are so sensitive that if I took more than 1 measurement every two days that it will begin to slowly become disturbed. Piezos on the other hand seem far more powerful in that they can take a lot more abuse; i.e., measurements. We’ll have to see how the magnets hold up. So far they seem more sensitive than the piezo, but better than the diodes.

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Part of this effect might be due to magnets, but at least a good portion of it in some of the experiments is not due to magnets. Also, I do not believe it is due to electrochemical reactions, or electrostatic (from friction), or any effect known to conventional physics, but hopefully tomorrow we’ll see.

Very important experiment:

I just finished some interesting testing of two Aluminum plates separated by white paper, no magnets. It’s important to note that the surface of one of the Al plates is definitely different. Perhaps it’s looks different because it has a rougher surface? Perhaps it has a thicker oxidized layer? Using the electrometer, the voltages can range from 100mV to over 400mV. I tried rubbing the paper and Al plates with different materials, friction, and it made no different in the voltage. Friction will produce high voltages, but it’s extremely high impedance. The resistance of the paper ranges from a few hundred mega ohms to 1/2 giga ohm, which in terms of insulation resistance is almost nothing.

Also I reversed each part, one at a time. First the paper, then each Al plate. This made no difference in the voltage polarity. I placed the Al plates in a magnetic field, and did not see any noticeable difference in voltage.

A 10Mohm resistor was placed across it, and the voltage dropped to 2.5mV, which comes to 250pA. After that, everything was turned off, and the Al plates were shorted to help decrease the time required for the device to reach a stabilized DC current.

So hopefully by tomorrow the current will have stabilized, … and I’ll be crossing my fingers that it will be the mysterious 10pA DC!  That will make my month!! If it’s the mysterious 10pA constant, then it means this is caused by the same effect as the diodes & piezos.

The piezos, and even more so the diodes have been tested extensively against known effects such as electrochemicals, which it is not. Regardless of how many diodes are placed in parallel, the current always stabilizes at 10pA DC.

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Yesterdays experiment of using plastic instead of paper produced 0.36 volts. So it’s difficult to explain this as being electrochemcial. Also, yesterday after the voltage decayed down to almost nothing, moving all of the parts (magnet and clip leads) to a different location on the paper and also flipping the magnet to the other side (a fresh side) did *not* revitalize the voltage– the voltage remained low. If it was due to electrochemical, then moving the parts to new & fresh areas should produce the normal voltage again, which it did not.

If tomorrow it’s down to 10pA, then in all likelihood it caused by the internal electric field that is produced when to different materials come in contact. Of course this electric field does not directly produce DC current, but it is believed that this intense electric field causes an effect that results in DC current. As to why remains to be seen. It could be anything from Quantum tunneling to a ZPE effect to something completely unknown.

BTW, diodes have this intense internal electric field at the junction. Piezos have an intense electric field.

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This morning, 2009/10/26, the current was 79pA.  Just 69 away from the mysterious 10pA. Will in make it, or fall below 10pA. I’m betting it will slowly decay to 10pA and settle there.

There was a youtube video that showed a guy taking a flat round disc NdFeB magnet, placed a piece of paper over the flat side of the magnet, then took a metal washer and placed it over the paper, essentially making a sandwich. So the paper separates the magnet & metal washer. Then he showed this producing voltage.

Also, the inventor of the Testatika claims to have demonstrated such a device to people.

It appears this video was removed from youtube. So I decided to try it for myself. I grabbed the nearest piece of paper, which was wax paper taken from the backside of a sticker that digikey.com sends with their parts. Also I used a metal nut instead of washer, about 1 cm in diameter. My NdFeB magnet is about 1 cm in diameter.

Then I got my ***high*** impedance voltage meter, AM-240, which was tested at ~ 15 giga ohms input resistance, and measured the voltage across the bolt & magnet. To my surprise it was over 400 mV.

The AM-240 was in 400mV mode, which is high Rin mode, ~ 15 Gohms. It was then changed to 4 volt mode, which has an Rin of nearly 1000 times less resistance of 20 Mohm, where the measured voltage was 35 mV.

To find the actual voltage, or close to it, a 1 uF low leakage capacitor was placed across the bolt & magnet, and allowed to charge for about 5 minutes. I have no idea how long it would take. Maybe that’s long enough, or maybe not. Then the AM-240 was placed in 4V mode, and the measured voltage across the capacitor was nearly 600 mV.

So, this is a new experiment I’ll be testing. Don’t get me wrong, it might be due to electrochemical contact reactions between the probes & the metals on the device, but that’s easy to test for, and has been extensively tested on the diodes. For example, it is easy to place the diode in the disturb state by running even the slightest amount of current through it, or change it temperature, or if it’s an LED then simply placing it in light is sufficient to disturb it. Once disturbed, the voltage produced by the diode is hundreds of times less. So the diode is producing no measurable voltage.

What would interest me about this magnet effect is if it has the same characteristics as the diode & piezos in that it can be disturbed. For example, when the diodes are disturbed they produce no measurable DC voltage, and can take weeks to recover. Also, if this magnetic device is shorted, will it stabilize at producing the mysterious 10 pA DC current? For now, the mysterious 10 pA DC current needs to be overcome.