THE RESPONSE:
Ms. Ref. No.: PHYSC-D-06-00046
Title: Superconductivity: coherent "tunnelling" by a dielectric array of
charge-carriers
Physica C
Dear Dr. Kwok,
I am not happy with the way your reviewer has treated me. No reviewer needs
4 months to write such inconsequential tripe (see below). Are you sure
he/she is a scientist? Only a religious freak could have written the
following sentence: "The microscopic mechanism for the description of low
temperature superconductors (s-pairing) is known since 1957. This mechanism
describes well all known experimental data on low temperature
superconductors and it is a text book material. Therefore there is no need
to consider a "new mechanism" for the low temperature superconductors." A
real scientist should know that scientific models are not dogma; a
scientific model is always open to scrutiny and amendment when required.
Furthermore, your reviewer is telling a deliberate lie. In my manuscript I
have argued cogently and logically that the BCS model cannot describe all
known experimental data, even for the low temperature superconductors. As
pointed out in the manuscript, the BCS model does not give a mechanism that
explains why the electric field within a superconductor falls to zero
between two contacts; neither does it explains why the charge carriers
moving with a velocity v, which can be increased at will (below a maximum),
do not scatter when entering the contact they are moving to.
The fact is that I have postulated a single mechanism that models all
superconducting materials discovered to date; i.e. the low temperature
metals, the CuO ceramics as well as the superconducting semiconductors. I
have also given examples of how well this mechanism models the
superconducting behaviour in each of the three cases. Compared to BCS, my
mechanism gives a far better fit to the experimental data that had been
measured for low-temperature metals. One would have thought that the
scientific community would be delighted to find that there could be a single
mechanism that explains all types of superconductors. But no, your reviewer
reacts like the Vatican in the time of Galileo. Something along the line:
"The model of Ptolemy is known since antiquity and is already textbook
material. Therefore there is no need to consider a "new Copernican
mechanism" for the Universe. It is clearly poppycock.
The same can be said of the rest of his/her arguments. 2(i) The
experimental data would not fit if there is not an energy gap involved with
a lower energy. Furthermore, as pointed out, low temperature superconduction
sets in
when the electrons form a Wigner crystal. Wigner already showed in the
1930's that there is an energy gap. It has also been pointed out that in the
CuO ceramics the charge carriers form between the layers as quazi covalent
bonds; and a reference is given to another publication where this mechanism
has been modelled in detail. 2(ii) If you have an energy gap which acts as
an activation energy then the change from one phase to the other (i.e. the
thermodynamic properties) can be derived by a sophomore even when he/she has
a below average IQ. 2(ii) This third argument is of course also poppycock.
It is shown in detail in the manuscript that the model can explain published
experimental data that had been measured for low-temperature metals (Ta and
Sn), for YBCO and for overdoped diamond. Any real scientist, even a below
average one, will easily be able to see from the manuscript what the model
predicts.
It is my conclusion that your reviewer is just acting to suppress new ideas
in physics so as to protect the status quo. No wonder little progress has
been achieved in superconduction modelling since the 1980's. It is becoming
more and more clear that the peer review system is being systematically
abused by editors and reviewers to protect their own ideas instead of
allowing publication of ideas which might threaten what they want to
believe. Therefore I am also going to forward this letter to other parties
so that they can see and verify what has happened here.
Faithfully yours,
