Nanoclusters Break Superconductivity Record

KentuckyFC writes "A couple of years ago, two Russian physicists predicted that metal nanoclusters with exactly the right number of delocalized electrons (a few hundred or so) could become strong superconductors. Now an American group has found the first evidence that this prediction is correct in individual aluminium nanoclusters containing 45 or 47 atoms. And they found it at 200 K (abstract). That's a huge jump over the previous record of 138K for a high-temperature superconductor. There are a few caveats, however. The result is only partial evidence of superconductivity and the work has yet to be peer-reviewed. But its mere publication will set scientists scrambling to confirm. And 200K! That's practically room temperature in the Siberian winter."

still a little chilly

[HawkinsD]

Maybe not room temperature, even in Siberia: by my advanced calculations, 200 K = minus 100 F (or -73 C).

But still very exciting.

Dry Ice

[BlueParrot]

Carbon dioxide ( or dry-ice ) is bellow 195K at standard pressure, so this material wouldn't even need liquid nitrogen for cooling. If this can be made to scale it would without doubt give countless of applications.

Re:What's a "strong" superconductor?

[TheLink]

Not sure. I'm no expert but I believe that many higher temperature superconductors lose their superconductivity if exposed to strong magnetic fields. You could say these are weak superconductors in a way.

Whereas the "conventional" liquid helium superconductors can retain their superconductivity in very strong magnetic fields.

Being able to "tolerate" strong magnetic fields is very useful if you actually are intending to use the superconductors in many interesting applications - like MRI scanning devices, or maglev stuff and so on.

Re:GODDAMIT

[Waffle Iron]

Why the hell would you want to pronounce that highly awkward, useless and redundant fifth syllable? We've spent centuries over here cleaning up the English language by expunging extraneous letters and normalizing spelling to match pronunciation. Much has been accomplished, but more needs to be done. Get with the program.

Re:Grain of salt

[tepples]

The result is only partial evidence of superconductivity and the work has yet to be peer-reviewed. But its mere publication will set scientists scrambling to confirm.

Why the hell did they publish before peer review? That ain't how science is supposed to work.

The article "Preprint" on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] appears to disagree with your assessment.

Re:Grain of salt

[PhysicsPhil]

Why the hell did they publish before peer review? That ain't how science is supposed to work.

It is common practice in many scientific disciplines to publish a preprint of work before it is submitted for publication. This has the advantage of rapidly disseminating advances to the scientific community and to the world at large, since it's a public server. In the case of work in competitive fields, posting a preprint helps establish priority in who did what first.

Because it's not peer reviewed and the preprint server is open to all, preprints must be taken with a grain of salt. Their value depends largely on the author's reputation within the scientific community. If the person who published this work is known to have produced good work in the past and/or works with those who have produced reliable work, the report within the preprint is generally taken at face value.

Re:Grain of salt

[Trintech]

The result is only partial evidence of superconductivity and the work has yet to be peer-reviewed. But its mere publication will set scientists scrambling to confirm.

Why the hell did they publish before peer review? That ain't how science is supposed to work.

Please read this [wikipedia.org] or at least the following excerpt:

In academic publishing, a paper is an academic work that is usually published in an academic journal. It contains original research results or reviews existing results. Such a paper, also called an article, will only be considered valid if it undergoes a process of peer review by one or more referees (who are academics in the same field) in order to check that the content of the paper is suitable for publication in the journal. A paper may undergo a series of reviews, edits and re-submissions before finally being accepted or rejected for publication. This process typically takes several months. Next there is often a delay of many months (or in some subjects, over a year) before publication, particularly for the most popular journals where the number of acceptable articles outnumbers the space for printing. Due to this, many academics offer a 'pre-print' copy of their paper for free download from their personal or institutional website.

Re:Grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

Because:
1) your work will get quick attention from a lot of peers if you do this way. They may refute your results before they get to @press@.
2) you have less chances that someone else publish the same result earlier than you, just because long referring tracks (aka "meticulous referees")
3) science works the way the peer community thinks it should -that is science-. And right now the community accepts this behavior.
4) nobody is lying. Everybody knows that these results must be verified by others before being engraved on an ivory tower.

Re:Dry Ice

[imsabbel]

Not everything larry niven wrote in ringworld is literal truth....

Re:still a little chilly

[marcansoft]

No, a change of 1C is exactly a change of 1K because they're defined that way. Which means that the melting point of ice is only approximately 0 C, or 273.15K, and that the boiling point of water is approximately 373.1339 K or 99.9839 C.

Re:What's a "strong" superconductor?

[ParanoidJanitor]

There is a limit to how much current superconductors can carry before they become non-superconducting (depends on the material and the cross-section of the specific chunk of material.) A strong superconductor will be able to carry more electrons while remaining in the superconducting phase.

Re:GODDAMIT

[dwater]

Not how I read it.

The reference says :

1) 'Aluminum' predominates only in the USA.
2) It's 'prefered' by the Canadian Oxford dictionary.
3) ...and everywhere else uses 'Aluminium' or analogies thereof.
4) The IUAPC recognises 'Aluminum' only as a 'varient'.

wrt 4) - that's not what I call 'swings both ways'.

More like "I'm distinctly heterosexual, but someone showed me a picture of a naked man once. I threw up, but I did see it".