Is There Truly No Current at Extreme AC Frequencies?

[gvlr96]

A work colleague of mine told me that if you have an AC voltage across a wire and the frequency is high enough, there would not be any current, because electrons don't have time to move from one atom from another. Is there any truth behind this?

 

[berkeman]

A work colleague of mine told me that if you have an AC voltage across a wire and the frequency is high enough, there would not be any current, because electrons don't have time to move from one atom from another. Is there any truth behind this?

Not really. Current doesn't flow because of electrons "moving from atom to atom" -- they are moving in the conduction band of the metal. It is true that the "resistance" of the wire is higher at higher frequencies because of the skin effect, and the impedance of the wire is higher at higher frequencies because of inductance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect

 

[gvlr96]

Not really. Current doesn't flow because of electrons "moving from atom to atom" -- they are moving in the conduction band of the metal. It is true that the "resistance" of the wire is higher at higher frequencies because of the skin effect, and the impedance of the wire is higher at higher frequencies because of inductance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect

I am aware of the skin effect, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. Would the skin effect be able to cause the same stop in current at high frequency?

 

[berkeman]

I am aware of the skin effect, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. Would the skin effect be able to cause the same stop in current at high frequency?

Did you get a chance to read through the wikipedia page that I linked to? It's a progressive effect, not a step function...