Andi, this is something called quantum tunneling or based on the material called a quantum tunneling composite.

To explain it, we obviously have to get back into the wacky world of quantum mechanics and try and understand what the hell quantum tunnelling is.

What actually is quantum tunneling.

It's another one of these bizarre quantum mechanical effects that arise because although we got this picture in our heads off small particles electrons, protons, even atoms being like this being like little footballs, in fact they're not.

They have a way of, like, characteristic as well.

And instead of being found definitively in this position, the the particle could be found.

Here, here, here, here, here, here, right across a region of space.

It's not that doesn't have a fixed location in space if we've got a football, if we got a classical world and it's coming along and it comes across to a barrier.

It bounces off that barrier unless it's got an incredible amount of energy that it actually passes straight through bulldozers through the door remarkably with quantum mechanics.

Because you've got the probability of finding the particle Here, here, here, here, here, On importantly, the other side off this door.

Good, because you've got a probability of finding other side of the door.

It means that the particle can actually go right through the door.

Even Maur Bizarrely, there's a probability that the particle would be inside the door inside the barrier.

If you and I were playing hard and sake, there would be a probability that you were hiding in this room and there would be a probability that you were hiding out there in the corridor.

Yes, but to get to the corridor you would have had to get through the door.

Yes, Yeah.

Did the particle know the quantum Mechanically, The particle can literally passed through the door.

It doesn't have to open the door.

It can get true.

This barrier this appears mad.

This idea of particles actually passing through solid objects on it seems like quite esoteric, weird phenomenon.

Turns out that that quantum tunneling pops up absolutely everywhere.

The reason the sun shines the fundamental reason the sun shines is because ultimately particles protons tunnel through a barrier.

In this case, it's it's ah, it's an energy barrier.

So what you have are two particles to positively charged clumps that come together now that we know that like charges, repair lot repulsion for those problems is very, very large.

But because they're not really little balls because they they have a way of, like character, because you can.

The probability of finding them a different positions varies.

There is actually a probability that there find close enough together to trigger the fusion reaction.

My computer the hard disk in my computer that's in.

Since about 2005 there's been a development off what are called tunneling magnate or resistance hard disks on these air, best fundamentally on the tunneling off electrons.

True, a barrier.

Another example is a flash memory, in fact, that the way these work these random access memory devices is that you store charge, store electronic charge via on a computer chip pickles and the way you actually clear that is that the electrons tunneled through a barrier so coming back to this technology.

This wonderful new touch phone, new touchpad, tox screen technology.

How does it work?

Well, what we have on nano particle small chunks of matter which are Reines between two up to 50 nanometers.

Still, those size limits on particular, well defined.

And the key thing that's happening here is that you're taking those nanoparticles.

You're moving them together or moving them apart.

And you're changing the writ of tunneling between those those two nanoparticles.

So let's start off.

So the nanoparticles in the film look like this.

They're separated by quite a large distance.

There's very little probability, if any, for an electron to actually move from particle to particle to particle.

So I come in with my thumb margin.

On this scale, a very massive film comes in, squeezes the polymer, and what happens is that you actually move those particles together and you're changing the rate of tunneling between those those two nano particles.

So you're changing what I mean about your changing the rate at which electrons can can move across this gap between the particles.

Now, this might seem a little strange, but when you look at that, first of all it seems that, well, there's no barrier there.

There's just fucking in fact, for the electrons, there is a barrier is a very strong barrier.

Because you've got a gap, you have got vacuum.

It's just like if you took circuit with a battery and a bulb, you cut that the wire in that circuit and you're left with a gap.

Electrons won't flow classically electrons on floor across the gap.

But if you make that got really, really, really, really small down to the nanometer level, then you will actually see electrons flow.

When you change the gap between these particles a little bit, it's not like you get a small change in the tunneling problem that you've got a huge change in the ability.

Turns out that for every angstrom for every 10th often animator, in many cases you will get a change in the probability often order of magnitude off a factor of 10.

So for every 10th of anatomy to you, move these with these particles apart, you're typically talking about a factor of 10 chains and the currents between particles.

So what we have here is when we bring them together, we see this rapid rise in the tunneling probability.

We see the rapid rise in the ability of this film.

Thio Pass an electric current on so simply by applying pressure Thio one of these polymer films, these polymer nanoparticle hybrids, you can change it from an insolent ER to a metal on.

In fact, you can go from a resistance off 10 to the 12th of a 1,000,000 million arms toe, one owned by applying pressure.

And so, of course, that's very easy for an electronic device to pick up that change in resistance on from that.

The key thing is that they are arguing quite correctly, arguing that they've moved from a two dimensional taught screen to a tree dimension touch screen because you've now got sensitivity to force in not direction.

I guess what really fascinates me and you know the world of videos as part of 60 symbols where I have waffled on about this at length but really fascinates me.

We've got this incredibly esoteric, an incredibly difficult to grasp a concept or concepts related to quantum mechanics.

And yet time and time again, despite the fact that our huge philosophical gaps in our understanding we still can apply it on the quantum theory.

Time and time again, when you play to the real world, does a remarkably good job of explaining an answer works.