Abstract
IT is an experimental fact that certain electrical conductors, when connected in series so as to form a circuit, present a different resistance to currents flowing through them in opposite directions. Examples are the electrolytic rectifiers, the crystal rectifiers, and the dry-plate rectifiers recently developed. In some cases the rectification undoubtedly is due to the circuit itself being modified by the flow of the current. Thus, for example, in an electrolytic rectifier a layer of oxide may be formed on one of the electrodes when the current is passing in a given direction, obstructing its further flow, while no such layer appears at the other electrode, made of a different material, when the current is reversed. Thermoelectric effects may occasionally play a rôle too. In crystal rectifiers, however, the rectification must in general be caused directly by the interaction of the crystal lattices with the conduction electrons (W. Schottky, Zeit. f. Phys., 14, 63; 1923). For it appears that they rectify alternating currents of frequency 107, and of the order of a microampere only (R. Ettenreich, Phys. Zeit., 21, 208; 1920), and the amount of substance chemically changed in an electrolytic action during a half period of such an alternating current is altogether too small to be made responsible for the phenomenon, quite apart from the fact that chemical changes would scarcely be capable of taking place with a frequency of 107. As Ettenreich (l.c.) remarks himself, the thermoelectric explanation too is invalidated by his experiments. The question arises then as to what is the elementary mechanism underlying this kind of rectification.
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DE L. KRONIG, R. The Theory of Electrical Rectification. Nature 123, 314 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123314a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/123314a0
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