Negative capacitance directly measured by Berkeley researchers

[gary]

Negative capacitance in a ferroelectric material is characterized by a state
of the polarization where the polarization charge and the net electric field
oppose each other.

In a 14th January 2019 press release by the University of California, Berkeley,
it has been announced that for the first time ever, they have imaged the
state of negative capacitance.





The results have been published in Nature :-
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0855-y (subscription required)

arVix paper "Negative Capacitance in a Ferroelectric Capacitor" by Khan et. al. :-
https://arxiv.org/vc/arxiv/papers/1409/1409.3273v1.pdf

Press release here :-
https://engineering.berkeley.edu/2019/01/researchers-capture-image-negative-capacitance-action

[DarkArts]

A material with negative energy density might come in very handy. I'm not saying it's feasible, but I can at least highlight the apparent link between the generation of a material with (localised) negative energy density and an application that theoretically requires it.



For discussion, or not. (And, yes, I know there are many, many other practical and theoretical barriers to FTL travel, but it's still interesting).