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Have you seen those ghost programmes on tv or YouTube? You know the ones that always claim to have proof of the 'other side' or 'demons' because some tool you know is just a scanning radio, repurposed game device or a random number generator did something you'd expect those devices to do? Well now you can join them and understand exactly why it did the things it did because we are going to show that it's all just random numbers and sometimes that makes it appear like cool stuff is happening but we're going to go a step further, we're going QUANTUM!. To my knowledge none of these devices have claimed to be quantum. Well I say none, Randonautica which was famous for 15 minutes during the year we are all trying to forgot made that claim but nothing that you hold in your hand and can make for less than £20 has.
Quantum What?Yeah, Quantum baby. Only I haven't done any physics since the early 90's and we didn't cover quantum physics in the GNVQ Advanced Science I used to get into university so I'm going to have to ask Chat GPT to explain what we're doing.
Take it away Mr Roboto
The avalanche effect in a reversed-biased transistor and its connection to quantum theory involve the principles of electron dynamics in semiconductors and quantum tunneling. Here’s a breakdown of how these concepts relate:
Avalanche Effect in Reversed Transistors
In a transistor, the avalanche effect occurs when a high reverse voltage is applied across a junction (e.g., the collector-base junction). This strong electric field accelerates free charge carriers (electrons or holes) to such high energies that they can knock bound electrons out of their atomic orbitals within the semiconductor lattice.
Carrier Generation: When a high-energy carrier collides with atoms, it frees additional charge carriers, leading to a chain reaction. This creates a rapid increase in current.
Breakdown Region: This process leads to avalanche breakdown, where a small increase in voltage results in a large increase in current.
Connection to Quantum Theory
The avalanche effect is deeply connected to quantum mechanical phenomena. Here’s how:
Quantum Tunneling:
In a high electric field, electrons can quantum mechanically tunnel through the potential barrier created by the semiconductor junction. This is a manifestation of the principles of wave-particle duality, where electrons exhibit behavior that classical physics cannot fully explain.
This tunneling increases the density of free carriers and can contribute to initiating the avalanche process.
Quantum Tunneling:In a high electric field, electrons can quantum mechanically tunnel through the potential barrier created by the semiconductor junction. This is a manifestation of the principles of wave-particle duality, where electrons exhibit behavior that classical physics cannot fully explain.This tunneling increases the density of free carriers and can contribute to initiating the avalanche process.
Energy Band Theory:
The energy of the accelerated electrons, described by quantum mechanics, must exceed the bandgap of the semiconductor to knock electrons into the conduction band.
The interaction between charge carriers and the crystal lattice is governed by quantum mechanical rules that dictate how electrons can gain or lose energy.
Energy Band Theory:The energy of the accelerated electrons, described by quantum mechanics, must exceed the bandgap of the semiconductor to knock electrons into the conduction band.The interaction between charge carriers and the crystal lattice is governed by quantum mechanical rules that dictate how electrons can gain or lose energy.
Carrier Scattering and Quantum States:
The avalanche process depends on the probability of scattering events, which are described by quantum mechanical transition probabilities. These probabilities determine how likely an electron is to transfer enough energy to ionize another atom.
Carrier Scattering and Quantum States:The avalanche process depends on the probability of scattering events, which are described by quantum mechanical transition probabilities. These probabilities determine how likely an electron is to transfer enough energy to ionize another atom.
Photon Emission:
As the avalanche process occurs, high-energy collisions may also release photons due to transitions between quantized energy states in the material. This light emission is another quantum mechanical consequence of the avalanche effect.
Photon Emission:As the avalanche process occurs, high-energy collisions may also release photons due to transitions between quantized energy states in the material. This light emission is another quantum mechanical consequence of the avalanche effect.
Avalanche Effect in Quantum Devices
This phenomenon is not just a classical occurrence but a vital feature in certain quantum devices:
Avalanche photodiodes use the avalanche effect for photon detection, where incident photons trigger the breakdown process.
Quantum noise in avalanche processes is a subject of interest for quantum cryptography and signal processing, as it highlights the role of quantum uncertainty.
Summary
The avalanche effect in reversed transistors relates to quantum theory through:
Quantum tunneling of electrons in strong electric fields.
Energy and probability transitions based on quantum mechanical rules.
Carrier generation and interactions dictated by quantum energy states.
This interplay of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena makes the avalanche effect an excellent example of quantum theory's relevance in electronic devices.
Oh, man that sounds so cool. This is an actual quantum effect in action generating every bit of randomness we need to see the same results as an Ovilus device. The cheapest clone on Amazon.co.uk today is £90 (just over $113) and it doesn't tell you how it works, why it suddenly decides to speak a word, or how it selected that word you're just expected to believe it's supernatural. Even the devices that don't make supernatural claims (and many don't they let the users make the claims for them) they are still complete black boxes as if knowing they are just random number generators makes the coincidences any less interesting unless you really believe that it's ghosts making the words come though and and that case this one has to be better since it just involves the ghost pushing a few electrons a different direction. :)
We're going to make an avalanche circuit, connect it to a junk drawer pico, an i2c oled display, a battery and charger, a i2s amp and a speaker and put it all in a case. What could be easier. A breakdown of the how and where I harvested the case, speaker, and battery can be found here.
The Pico was one of the pair I have left from a day one order that never found a project. A legit junk drawer item that might have remained an oddity unused just like it's big brother the Pi Zero still in it's magazine front cover giveaway sleeve.
Avalanche circuitThe circuit in this device uses a reversed-biased NPN transistor to generate the noise. Various circuits are available online doing this and this is the one I put together.
The parts required are very simple. So simple in fact I could find them in my junk drawer even when I couldn't find a storage tub with the vast majority of my basic components in and had to borrow capacitors from an unfinished project3x NPN transistors (I used BC547B)2x 470ohm resistors1x 680ohm resistor1x 91ohm resistor1x 0.1 uF capactitor1x 10 uF capacitor
All of this went on to a bit of project board.
And this is where the project hit the first issue. Firstly I couldn't find a 91ohm resistor in the scraps I'd got available so I used a 100ohm one (the one at the top on an angle) which means the voltage divider circuit supplying the pico analog pin has the potential to go a little over voltage. Fingers crossed. Also I knew my good soldering iron was out of action so I used one I'd never used for electronics before with some unlabeled solder that I found lying around as I was hunting for parts. So that was interesting and I'm pretty happy with the results given a huge bullet shaped tip and solder that didn't behave as I expected it to for the first 10 mins. I fully expect your path to be smoother at this point if you choose to make your own.
If you are going to make your own then the yellow wire carrying the signal needs to be as short as possible and ideally shielded. I know I've got some RG316 somewhere but couldn't find it among all my various antenna bits so ended up with a twisted pair arrangement it seems like a fair compromise.
Most of the gang lines up for it's photographs before going to the ball but there is one latecomer can you guess who it is?
Well it was at this point I gave up being able to find my box of treasures which I know has 10 brand new tiny little boost devices tucked inside and ended up buying one. A cheap MT2609 device I could get the next day from a world famous online store that doesn't need our help to beat their competitors so shall remain nameless. It's missing from the image above but it's job was to take the 3.7v from the little battery (salvaged from the same device as the case and speaker) and bring it up to 5v which will be used to drive everything we see. More on that later.
Putting it togetherAt this point I put the project together and completely forgot to document it because the fun of building it happened then the fun of coding could start so obviously I did exactly what each of us would do. I jumped right in and started coding.
Have a diagram of what I did to make up for the lack of pictures of the build process. This is how the various parts are connected to the pico. If you're playing at home or using another device all these pins are pretty simple to change in the code.
Well I say I didn't take any pictures. There is this one. A nice arty shot. Which is what my photography tutor told me to call out of focus shots with no obvious focal point.
Once the software was written and it was performing as expected, more on that later, I squeezed it all into the case to check it fitted with the far too stiff hookup wire I had to hand.
Then I shut the case up to see how it looks and performs.
It looks good. I'd forgotten to drill the hole for the switch so I couldn't put the top on but then I noticed right next to the hole for the usb3 that I was reusing for the charging circuit there is, what was, a headphone socket I can reuse for the power switch only not today because the deadline for contest is in a few hours and I think if I spend new years eve with a soldering iron instead of the family it won't be a very good year for me. See the future section for the plans after the competition.
Here is a picture of the device in use.
Where to start? At the beginning is the traditional place. Well I couldn't find my main bits box at all, nor lots of tools, I write it quickly in circuit python but failed to notice that it doesn't support ogg theo or speex so I couldn't fit all the samples on the device and didn't want to add an SD card reader to keep the parts count down (although I did find two DFPlayer devices during my search so could have gone this route) and I'm not entirely happy with the fit in the case at the moment but since I didn't cut the hole for the switch I can change it's position in 10 mins by swapping out the wiring.
But most importantly that cheap boost device, the only thing bought specially for this project, doesn't work correctly and won't go above 4v which isn't enough to get a decent avalanche effect going. It still generates some randomness but not much more than leaving the pin floating would have done. It needs swapping out sometime in the new year so I can confirm the circuit behaves as I expect it to.
Where the project stands nowSort of working, it reads from an analog pin, it decides if it's a one or zero and sets a number of bits accordingly. It uses these to decide if it should trigger a word, selects the word using 11 bits of random data and shows that word on the screen. It only plays it if it fits in the memory available (so less than 900 words out of 2048) but it does play those :)
The futureThe future is so bright it is going to really fit in that bright red case. Firstly I'll be moving the power switch, secondly I'll be changing the boost circuit to one that works and finally writing the code in C so that it and all the samples fit on the device probably using Ogg Theo instead of 8bps mp3. It might even get a nice custom circuit board. One thing is for sure. This isn't finished and the next step will perform all the the features of the original in a completely transparent way using quantum effects to generate it's RNG, be entirely self contained and look really sweet too boot.
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