Scientists Create Room Temperature Superconductor

StarEmperor writes "A team of Canadian and German scientists have fabricated a room-temperature superconductor, using a highly compressed silicon-hydrogen compound. According to the article,"The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature.""

Room-pressure?

[atomicthumbs (824207)]

Is it also a room-pressure superconductor?

Re:Room-pressure?

[Zymergy (803632)]

NOPE. Do not pass Go Do not collect $200.

"Instead of super-cooling the material, as is necessary for conventional superconductors, the new material is instead super-compressed. The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature."

Re:Room-pressure?

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Rats. Though at least hypothetically, it seems like it would be easier to design a containment for a high-pressure superconductor that requires minimal energy to maintain versus a low-pressure one. You can design a pressure vessel such that the pressure only escapes via small known locations (any valve or seal), whereas cold always escapes in all directions. So there still may be practical advantages to this discovery.

Though in any event characterizing the behavior of high-pressure materials is valuable.

Re:Room-pressure?

[noidentity (188756)]

whereas cold always escapes in all directions

Cold is not a thing, it is the absence of something (heat). Heat, on the other hand, exists, and enters from all directions.

Re:Room-pressure?

[Gewalt (1200451)]

Cold is not a thing, it is the absence of something (heat). Heat, on the other hand, exists, and enters from all directions.

Heat is not a thing. Thermal Energy, on the other hand, exists, and dissipates in all directions. (Heat is defined as the dissipation of thermal energy)

Re:Room-pressure?

[Wonko the Sane (25252)]

Cold is not a thing, it is the absence of something (heat). Heat, on the other hand, exists, and enters from all directions.

Heat is not a thing. Thermal Energy, on the other hand, exists, and dissipates in all directions. (Heat is defined as the dissipation of thermal energy)

Thermal energy is not a thing. Molecules do, however, have kinetic energy which they tend to partially transfer to other molecules with less kinetic energy when they randomly collide.

Re:Room-pressure?

[rubycodez (864176)]

kinetic energy is not a thing but a property dependent on inertial reference frame of observer

Re:Room-pressure?

[Wonko the Sane (25252)]

It's turtles all the way down

Re:Room-pressure?

[rubycodez (864176)]

yup, and I tell ya what, the legs o' them broad-backed world supportin'turtles is good eatin!

Re:Room-pressure?

[elronxenu (117773)]

IANASE (I Am Not A Superconductor Expert), but that sounds reasonable. There will not be superconducting wires of this stuff, at least no wires longer than microscopic scale.

If scientists can figure out how to make transistors from this stuff and use it to link those transistors together inside a chip then we might get CPUs which can massively exceed current clock rates.

The huge disparity between on-chip clocks and bus/memory clocks will increase the pressure on Intel and AMD to push as much circuitry on-chip as possible. The practical limit on that may turn out to be cooling requirements - how much heat is generated and needs to be removed from the chip.

Re:Room-pressure?

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

I don't see why superconducting wires of these silanes couldn't be kept pressurized by containment inside a fullerene jacket, at macroscopic lengths.

Once superconductors don't require huge apparatus for cooling or even pressure, I expect labs will make superconducting semiconductors [google.com] less exotic.

Re:Room-pressure?

[inKubus (199753)]

What if they can build a long one with a carbon nanotube lattice around the outside, which self-compresses when streched (sort of like one of those Chinese finger-traps). Then you could have a material which becomes superconducting when you stretch it, say between two telephone poles or something.

Re:Room-pressure?

[Alsee (515537)]

The huge disparity between on-chip clocks and bus/memory clocks will increase the pressure on Intel and AMD to push as much circuitry on-chip as possible.

Yes, but will it increase the pressure enough to achieve superconductivity?

-

Re:Room-pressure?

[SnowZero (92219)]

400 GPa [nasaspaceflight.com]

How much pressure?

[Gorimek (61128)]

It doesn't say how much "super pressure" is.

If a power cable at the bottom of the ocean is under enough pressure, it could be very useful.

Re:How much pressure?

[DTemp (1086779)]

The story I read said 50GPa. Which is around 7-8 MILLION PSI. We're talking a whole boatload of pressure here. 50GPa is the minimum, the superconductivity is maintained at higher temperatures at around 120GPa (or 20 million psi).

Re:Room-pressure?

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

No, but I suspect that this will still be a huge breakthrough, because we're generally better at keeping things pressurized than at keeping them cold. We have many, many static, high-pressure system with high reliability, but not that many super-cooled ones because cooling requires active energy expenditures.

Umm...

[linuxboredom (1054516)]

So, how exactly is this a good alternative to colder superconductors? Pressure is often more expensive to safely maintain. Not to mention the fact that SiH4 autoignites at room temperature.

Re:Umm...

[pla (258480)]

So, how exactly is this a good alternative to colder superconductors?

Because you can maintain a given pressure without the continual input of energy. Temperature (in either direction) has the annoying habit of doing its best to match that of the ambient environment.


Not to mention the fact that SiH4 autoignites at room temperature.

In the presence of oxygen, yes... Fortunately, you can buy small glass containers that maintain an anoxic environment at four for a dollar, under the name "light bulbs".


Pressure is often more expensive to safely maintain.

Don't think in terms of working with compressed gasses - Think of something more like a propane tank, where once you have it in there, it just sits there and doesn't really take a whole lot of maintenance. Keep it out of the sun and avoid mechanical stresses, and it will stay compressed and not do nasty things like burning/exploding for decades.

worth a read

[by Anonymous Coward]

You might find this [american.com] worth a read in considering the future of science in the US.

Re:worth a read

[CrazedWalrus (901897)]

Thanks for the link. It's a great read.

This just reinforces my idea that the internet came along at an absolutely perfect time to save America from itself. As these wonderful-sounding yet completely impractical ideas continue to pervert and destroy our academic institutions, the internet will necessarily play a larger and larger role as an alternative to "traditional" learning venues.

Many of us technologists are mostly self-taught when it comes to our professions -- particularly sysadmin and programmer types -- because the technology was available and the communications infrastructure just adequate that we were able to get the learning tools we required to equip ourselves for our career. Many of us then went to school already knowing the better part of what was necessary for our careers.

I propose that people like this were the pioneers of internet learning, and that, as academic institutions continue down their strictly regulated politically correct paths to irrelevance, people who really want to learn will do so online in the world classroom.

I'm not saying that's ideal. I'm just saying that, if special interest groups and politicians looking for a soundbite get their way (and they will), it might be the only way, short of leaving the country altogether.

Room temperature superconductors?

[Kaz Kylheku (1484)]

Like Leonard Bernstein, for instance?

In related news

[427_ci_505 (1009677)]

Researchers in Fairbanks, Alaska have just created a room temperature superconductor.

Re:In related news

[Surt (22457)]

Oh how good life would be if we only needed to reach fairbanks temperatures for superconductivity.
(Current best is a little worse than -300F, and fairbanks is not quite so cold, with a record of -66F).
So if they invented a room temperature superconductor, the world would in fact be quite thrilled at such a major breakthrough.

Its a bomb

[slashdotlurker (1113853)]

Silane explodes with considerable violence on exposure to air. Plus, how are you going to put conductors under great pressure ? The main attractiveness of super conductors lies in long distance electrical supply lines. Unless they come up with a way to hermetically seal the "wire" over distances of hundreds of miles with a seal that can withstand high pressure compressors dotting the landscape (unlikely), this very interesting advance will remain just that - very interesting.

All not counting whether it is more energy efficient to run superconductors with energy hog compressors or to just stick to what we have, hopefully realizing practical room temperature superconductivity.

Re:Its a bomb

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

Silane explodes with considerable violence on exposure to air

Cool, I get to mark two things off my Star Trek checklist in a single day:

* Room-temperature superconductors
* Computers that explode violently

Re:Its a bomb

[evanbd (210358)]

Silane explodes with considerable violence on exposure to air.

The best part? It's only *mostly* pyrophoric in air. *Sometimes* it waits a little while and accumulates a nice big cloud first, rather than flaring the instant it starts leaking.

Re:Its a bomb

[shotfire (1190219)]

High voltage is already 'transmitted' in pressurized bus work. The bus work is pressurized with SF6 gas and is regularly used with voltages up to 500kV. This is common in Transformer Stations and other high voltage equipment (breakers, etc). You can come within 3' of a 500kV bus that's pressurized in SF6 (you can theoretically touch the outside of the bus work too, but I wouldn't). Unfortunately it's not economically feasible to do this over long distances. SF6 in itself is not toxic to humans, although it has a nasty habit of displacing all the oxygen in your vicinity. The by-products created when electrical arc occur within the SF6 gas are extremely toxic.

Re:Its a bomb

[Wonko the Sane (25252)]

Plus, how are you going to put conductors under great pressure ?

1. Make a wire of the material.
2. Clad material with a metal coating at high temperature.
3. Wait for the cladding to contract as it cools.

It's like the old metal shop trick where you get a red-hot brass washer that barely fits on a dry-ice cold steel rod and put them together.

Re:Its a bomb

[rcw-home (122017)]

1. Make a wire of the material.
2. Clad material with a metal coating at high temperature.

Said material melts at 88 kelvins. It'd be like galvanizing an ice cream cone.

Please hold your breath and run...

[Detritus (11846)]

Silane is pyrophoric and boils at 161 K. It may be a while before this leads to practical results.

Re:Please hold your breath and run...

[nonsequitor (893813)]

Silane is pyrophoric and boils at 161 K.

So you're saying it's vaporware?

Easy step now

[bluefoxlucid (723572)]

The hard part's done: We found a supercompressed gas (boiling point -161F) that superconducts. The next step now involves finding something electrically similar (think lead oxide + aluminum versus iron oxide + aluminum. Ignite iron oxide + Al and get Aluminum Oxide and iron and heat; ignite lead oxide + aluminum and get deadly lead gas + aluminum oxide + about 50 times more heat). Find the right chemical properties (solid until 500C?) on an electrically similar compound and you got yourself a deal.

This is NOT room temperature superconductivity!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm holding TFA (Science, 14 March 2008, pp. 1506-1509). The highest critical temperatures they observed, regardless of pressure, were around 17 Kelvin (between 96-120 GPa). These are interesting results because they are among the few measurements available to shed light on the behavior of dense hydrides at these pressures, and these materials might, if better understood, one day allow a room temperature superconductor to be made. This, however, is not it.

Re:This is NOT room temperature superconductivity!

[by Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for looking up the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.1153282). The EETimes reporter seems to be terribly confused.
The money quote from the paper:

On cooling, a typical metallic behavior of the resistance was observed and eventually becoming superconducting (SC) at Tc {approx} 7 K (Fig. 2B). Upon further compression, the sample became completely opaque at 76 GPa, and Tc increased, with pressure up to 17.5 K at 96 GPa and 17 K at 120 GPa (Fig. 2C). At higher pressures, Tc decreases to 8.8 K at 165 GPa and is then likely to increase again to 11.3 K at 192 GPa (Fig. 2C). The behavior of Tc between 90 GPa and 120 GPa is suggestive that higher values of critical temperature of superconductivity may be possible. However, uncontrollable change of pressure during sample loading (20) prohibited us from studying this regime in detail.

Damn you samzenpus

[vikstar (615372)]

God damn you for the headline "Scientists Create Room Temperature Superconductor". I almost fell of my chair in excitment. Then my climax was rapidly stolen when I read that it required high pressures. Next time, try to replace typical news sensationalistic headlines with pertinant headlines. In this case "Scientists Create Room Temperature but High Pressure Superconductor".

Re:Damn you samzenpus

[kravlor (597242)]

Amen.

I work in nuclear fusion. One of the things we lust after in my field of research is more efficient superconducting magnets. Hell, even getting up to liquid nitrogen temperatures would be amazing for us. In the meantime, we're stuck with using liquid He and associated cryogenics, plus extra nuclear shielding around the $$$ SC coils.

Oh well. I thought we might have had something truly wonderful going with this one tonight, but it's just false advertising... (sigh)

Buckytubes as containers?

[otis wildflower (4889)]

I wonder if these molecules would fit within carbon buckytubes, and if those tubes could withstand the pressure required for room-temp superconductivity without exploding into organic compounds?

There is both more and less than meets the eye

[randolph (2352)]

The more is that the researchers have shown that silane turns into a metal at very high pressures; while researchers have not managed to create metallic hydrogen, they have managed this. The less is that it's only a 17-degree Kelvin superconductor--not an extraordinary temperature--and the pressures involved are on the order of half a million atmospheres.

The original article [sciencemag.org] was published in Science on 14 March 2008; Vol. 319. no. 5869, pp. 1506 - 1509; DOI: 10.1126/science.1153282. Your local library can probably get you a copy; if you are at a university you may be able to access the online version.

Re:Applications?

[mbessey (304651)]

Super-strong electromagnets are one application of current superconductors. There are a number of uses for such magnets in space, from reaction engine control, to ion thrusters [wikipedia.org], to magnetic "sails" [wikipedia.org], to gathering fuel for a Bussard ramjet [wikipedia.org].

Magnets can also be used to direct dangerous radiation away from ships and the crew, in a phenomenon similar to the cause of the auroras [wikipedia.org] that light up the night skies here on earth.

Re:Applications?

[Ungrounded Lightning (62228)]

Also: Mass-driver reaction engines. (Electric catapults using asteroidial debris for the "exhaust".) They work much more efficiently if you don't have resistive losses in the wiring and coils. (But rapidly changing the current through a superconductor is also problematic...)

Re:Applications?

[Goaway (82658)]

Actually, it is quite hard to cool things in space, if they generate any kind of heat. You can only radiate heat away - conduction and convection won't help you.

Re:Vernacular change?

[Chris Burke (6130)]

So, lets say this eventually becomes a common technology (doubtful, but lets pretend). When do we get to stop calling them 'super'conductors?

Never, because the physics of super conductors is different from regular conductors, and regular conductors are never going away. There are many, many circumstances where having resistance is necessary, and for that you need a plain-ol' conductor. Also I think we're safe from creeping-superlative-itis because you pretty much can't get more "super" than "effectively zero resistance".

And what's so hard about remembering all the types of DOS memory? "Conventional" was the kind that you never had enough of to launch your games. "Extended" memory was a baroque and stupid way of accessing all the extra memory you had that the chip couldn't address directly. "Expanded" memory was the same thing, only different. "Upper" memory was the memory your chip could address but refused to let your games use. And lastly "high" memory is when you were editing your config.sys autoexec.bat to get more conventional memory but you got distracted thinking about how funny it would be if .bat files were like, actually bats that flew around in your computer, and you forgot what the line was you just deleted, and your game never runs again.

So what

[WindBourne (631190)]

This is absolutely awesome if they can get it into production, even in 20 years.

• Efficient motors (think electric cars and perhaps even airplanes and boats);
• Zero loss of power while sending it all over North America (or Europe, Asia, etc).
• Heck, we are looking at hitting coppers limits. If this comes to be, then the use of copper will decrease and we will see a drop in price of that. The amount of copper that goes into large motors is pretty big.
• Just thinking about it, it might even be used for electric storage.
• Maglevs might become practical.

Besides, think of where we were 20 years ago; roughly 20 years ago, physicists had found a way to increase the temp. Those wires are now being used for short distance tranmissions. This could change everything.

Re:So what

[cayenne8 (626475)]

"This is absolutely awesome if they can get it into production, even in 20 years."

No doubt. Think of the awesome stereo cables you could make with these!!!

Superconducting speaker cables and interconnects....the audiophiles dream!!

No wooden knob needed.

:-)

Re:So what

[Darth (29071)]

No wooden knob needed.

No, you'd still need the audiophile.

(i kid because i care... ok, you caught me. I don't really care)

Re:So what

[daem0n1x (748565)]

No way! The cold sound of a superconductor cable cannot be compared to that warm, round sound of a vintage copper cable.

Re:So what

[Rei (128717)]

Heck, we are looking at hitting coppers limits

Morbo voice: "Resources do not work that way!"

What is being talked about here is *economically recoverable reserves*. What is economically recoverable depends on two things:

1) Current prices. As prices rise, by definition of the term "economically", more reserves become economical. Typically increasing exponentially.

2) Technology. Technology improvements act as a counter to increasingly difficult to extract reserves. Improvements can outpace it, wherein prices drop, or be outpaced by it, wherein prices rise. Example: adjusted for inflation, oil today is cheaper than it was back in the late 1800s when it bubbled to the surface in Pennsylvania (as opposed to having to be driven up from miles underground in inhospitable locations)

The applicability of this to oil [daughtersoftiresias.org] and lithium [daughtersoftiresias.org] are discussed.

Re:So what

[WindBourne (631190)]

Guess I was wrong. Maybe not. A few others said that this REQUIRES this to under constant high pressures. If so, then this is pure research and will never go into dev/prod. But it sure would be nice to have something cheap and plentiful that does the trick. I really think that whoever figures out how to make cheap room-temp (or better above that) superconductor wire will have the hottest item of this century. That one item would impact nearly all aspects of the world. In fact, I can not think of any one invention that would have a bigger positive impact on us.

Re:But...

[SQLGuru (980662)]

Combine the room-temp superconductor plus the motionless CPU cooler, throw in the fact that scientists success corrolates to beer (three stories from today), and you just might have colder beer.

Layne