The team argues that switching thevoltageapplied to these electrodes in a particular way should create a pattern of polarisation in the rod which moves superluminally, just like the charge distribution in the plasma surrounding a pulsar.
Each glass sheet has rows of conducting wires running across it, and the two sets of wires are at right angles, so that a voltage can be applied across the liquid crystal at any chosen intersection.
The resin within the carbon layers is laced with lithium ions, so that each layer acts like an electrode, causing the positively charged lithium ions to collect in one layer when a voltage is applied, and a current to flow when the sandwich is placed in a circuit.