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The Branly Coherer
August 25, 2014
Useful discoveries are sometimes practiced for many years without being understood. One example from
biology would be
selective breeding, practiced from
prehistoric times without any knowledge of the underlying
genetics involved. Our
scientific understanding of the process has led to the improved art of selective breeding known as
genetic engineering.
After the discovery of
radio and the development of simple
transmission and
detection devices by
Heinrich Hertz, there was a pioneering period of
experimentation to develop radio into a practical method of
information transmission. Generation of radio waves was easy with late
nineteenth century technology; but this was the age before
vacuum tube electronics, so detection of radio waves was difficult.
Modern schematic of the Heinrich Hertz 1887 radio experiment.
(Illustration by the author, rendered with Inkscape, via Wikimedia Commons.)
The radio apparatus used by Hertz is pictured above. The radio frequency generator was a
spark gap transmitter. As shown in the
schematic, the
core of a
transformer acts also as part of a
buzzer whose contacts
chop a
battery voltage into an
alternating current excitation of the transformer
primary. The
capacitor ensures that the buzzer would start when the
switch is thrown, it prevents
spark erosion of the buzzer contacts, and it also teams with the
inductance of the transformer coil to make a
resonant circuit.
The transformer produced a large voltage at the secondary, which was discharged at the ball
electrodes. A crude
antenna, formed by the two paddle plates, transmitted the radio frequency component of the spark to a companion
loop antenna. Electrodes at a gap in the 7.5
centimeter loop antenna produced a spark. A small gap was important for sensitivity, so the sparks were probably monitored by a
microscope. The transmitter could produce copious radio frequency
energy, but the detector was not very sensitive. It could receive signals across a room, but no farther.
The Hertz experiment was published in 1887, and a better detector was invented just a few years after that. This was the
coherer, a radio
detector that replaced the primitive spark gap. The basic coherer, which is shown in the figure, is a tube filled with
metal powder (typically
iron) with electrodes at each end. It was invented by the
French physicist,
Édouard Branly (1844-1940), around 1890.
The Branly Coherer.
An insulating tube is filled with metal powder, with the top and bottom electrodes connected to a dipole antenna, and the side electrodes connected through a battery to a current-measuring galvanometer.
Radio signals increase the conductance of the initially resistive metal powder. Tapping the tube restored the initial resistive state.
(Via Wikimedia Commons.)
Like most of
science, Branly's idea didn't come
out of the blue. This electrical effect of metal powder was first demonstrated around 1885, but in a non-radio electrical circuit. Branly reasoned, of course, that the source of voltage is immaterial. The
physical mechanism is the
dielectric breakdown of the thin, generally insulating,
oxide layer that's present at the surface of most metals.
The coherer got its name, from
Oliver Lodge nonetheless, from a misunderstanding of its operation. Our modern understanding of dielectric breakdown of materials was not known at the time, so it was thought that
electromagnetic forces produced by the radio waves brought the metal particles closer together; that is, they
cohered. This coherence was thought to decrease the resistivity.
Coherer resistance decreases with each received radio frequency pulse, and a point was reached when further signals could not be detected. At that point, an
operator would tap the coherer to again loosen the metal particles into their high resistance state. After a while, this tapping action was
automated (see figure). The coherer was used as a radio detector until it was replaced with
crystal detectors starting in 1907.
A 1917 illustration of a tapping coherer from The Electrical Experimenter.
The electromagnetic actuator for the tapper was wired in series with the coherer, so there would be a tap after each received signal.
(Via Wikimedia Commons.)
In his initial
publication,[1] Branly reported impressive resistance changes of his coherer to radio emissions from a nearby transmitter. He reported changes in resistance from an initial state to the state after receipt of a radio pulse of several million
ohms to two thousand ohms (kohm); several million ohms to 100 ohms; 150 kohm to 500 ohms; and 50 ohms to 35 ohms. The enhanced conductivity was found to persist for at least a day.[1] Branly experimented with other material systems, also, but the
granular metal coherer proved to be the best radio frequency detector.[2-3]
There's still interest in the operating principle of the Branly coherer even after more than a hundred years. Granular materials have recently become a popular area of study, and Branly's coherer is a model granular system. There have been several articles on the Branly coherer posted on
arXiv,[4-8] the most recent of these, by
Charles Hirlimann of the
Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériel de Strasbourg (
Strasbourg, France), was published at the end of last year.[4]
Hirlimann provides evidence that the Branly effect is caused by an induced
tunneling of
electrons through the oxide layer.[9] He presents a nice summary of research on the Branly effect, including the 1898 observation by Auerbach that
acoustic excitation at
audio frequencies will also cause a Branly coherer to conduct.[10] Other work, using a
one-dimensional array of metal
spheres as a model system, has demonstrated that once conduction occurs, even voltages as small as 0.4 volts will cause local heating of the contact areas to
temperatures of up to 1050°
C to
microweld the connections (see figure).[6]
Branly experiment with metal beads in one dimension. (Via arXiv.[6]
References:
- E. Branly, "On the Changes in Resistance of Bodies under Different Electrical Conditions," Minutes of proceedings, Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain), vol. 104 (1891), p. 416 (Contained in, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris, 1891, p. 90).
- Édouard Branly, "Variations of Conductivity under Electrical Influences," Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain), vol. 103, p. 481 (Contained in, Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris, vol. cii. (1890), p. 78).
- Édouard Branly, "Experiments on the conductivity of insulating bodies", Philosophical magazine, 1892, p. 530 (Contained in, Comptes Rendus de l' Académie des Sciences, November 24, 1890, and the Bulletin de la Societi international d'electriciens, no. 78, (May 1891).
- Charles Hirlimann, "Understanding Branly's effect through Induced Tunnelling," arXiv Preprint Server, December 28, 2013.
- Charles Hirlimann, "Understanding the Branly effect," arXiv Preprint Server, March 19, 2007.
- Eric Falcon and Bernard Castaing, "Electrical conductivity in granular media and Branly's coherer: A simple experiment," arXiv Preprint Server, November 16, 2004; published as E. Falcon, B. Castaing and M. Creyssels, "Nonlinear electrical conductivity in a 1D granular medium," European Physics Journal, vol. B38, no. 3 (April 1, 2004), pp. 475-483.
- Eric Falcon, Bernard Castaing and Mathieu Creyssels, "Nonlinear electrical conductivity in a 1D granular medium," arXiv Preprint Server, November 19, 2003.
- D. Vandembroucq, A.C. Boccara and S. Roux, "Breakdown patterns in Branly's coheror," arXiv Preprint Server, July 1, 1998.
- D. Boosé and F. Bardou, "A quantum evaporation effect," Europhysics Letters, vol. 53 no. 1 (January, 2001), pp. 1-7.
- F. Auerbach, "Ueber Widerstandsverminderung duch electrische und durch akustische Schwingungen," Annalen der Physik, vol. 300, no. 3 (1898), pp. 611-617.
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