Linking Spatial Distributions of Potential and Current in Viscous Electronics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to infer electron flow patterns from potential measurements in viscous electronic systems, where nonlocal relations and magnetic fields create complex current and potential distributions.

Contribution

It presents a novel complex analysis-based approach to extract current flows from potential data in viscous electronics, addressing the challenge of nonlocal current-field relations.

Findings

Method successfully extracts current flows from potential measurements.

Reveals complex flow patterns including vortices and negative resistance.

Applicable in systems with magnetic fields and viscous electron behavior.

Abstract

Viscous electronics is an emerging field dealing with systems in which strongly interacting electrons behave as a fluid. Electron viscous flows are governed by a nonlocal current-field relation which renders the spatial patterns of current and electric field strikingly distinct. Notably, driven by the viscous friction force from adjacent layers, current can flow against the electric field, generating negative resistance, vorticity and vortices. Moreover, different current flows can result in identical potential distributions. This sets a new situation where inferring the electron flow pattern from the measured potentials presents a nontrivial problem. Using the inherent relation between these patterns through the complex analysis, here we propose a method for extracting the current flows from potential distributions measured in the presence of a magnetic field.