Possible Room Temperature Superconductor Achieved 264
TechkNighT_1337 sends news that surfaced on the Next Big Future blog, concerning research out of the University of Bengal, in India. The report is of a possible superconducting effect at ambient room temperatures. Here is the paper on the ArXiv. (Note that this research has not been peer-reviewed or published yet.) "We report the observation of an exceptionally large room-temperature electrical conductivity in silver and aluminum layers deposited on a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate. The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K. The results are strongly suggestive of a superconductive interfacial layer, and have been interpreted in the framework of Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons as the suggested mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. ... The fact that the results described above have been obtained from very simply-fabricated systems, without the use of any sophisticated set-up and any special attention being given to crystal purity, atomic perfection, lattice matching, etc. suggests that the physical process is a universal one, involving only an interface between a metal and an insulator with a large low-frequency dielectric constant. We note in passing that PZT and the cuprates have similar (perovskite or perovskite-based) crystal structures. This resemblance may provide an added insight into the basic mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity."
Balogna (Score:4, Interesting)
> The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K.
Pure copper does the exact same thing.
I call bogus.
Maury
Re:Of course! (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly so obvious. And you know, it sounds entirely possible it's superconducting, but you know they really won't know if it is or not until they (mumble mumble mumble...)
Actually, I'll just come right out and ask: how is it that this is just "possible?" I understand that they set up a device to measure resistance, and it sounds like its just a very thin layer that is actually superconducting which sounds like it could complicate things, but then it just says there was a "sharp change" in the conductivity. Sounds like their measurements didn't just say "zero resistance." Guessing they were saying the signal was noisy because the layer was so thin?
I know magnets levitate over at least some superconductors, would that not have been another test here?
Meissner effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Magnetic levitation photos or it didn't happen.
Re:Two weeks old, no citations or trackbacks (Score:4, Interesting)
Lisi's E8 paper has been cited like 17 times. I'd say that's pretty good and hardly constitutes "no scientists commenting on it in 3 years". It's usually a good bet, but overhyped media publicity doesn't ALWAYS automatically mean someone's work is shit. Lisi's theory makes concrete falsifiable predictions for new particles that will either be confirmed or ruled out using the LHC's dataset.
Re:Someone didn't get the memo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The catches (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but the small crystals are usually a side-effect of the technique used to find novel superconducting compounds. What some groups do is create polycrystalline lumps where each crystal has a slightly different formula. Then they test resistivity with changing temperature across the whole lot. If just one crystal superconducts, there will be a 'kink' in the graph. This is like a simple brute-force method for testing many samples in parallel, but doesn't necessarily provide a formula that an be produced in bulk.
It's like a mathematical proof that states that something "must exist" without providing an actual value.
Also, superconductors are inherently useful irrespective of the current carrying capacity. For example, Josephson Junctions [wikipedia.org] and RSFQ [wikipedia.org] digital electronics are both very useful and require very low power.
Even a "thin-film" superconductor like the one described in the article would be very useful, as that can be practical for integrated circuitry, even if it's not possible to make a flexible wire out of it.
Re:Cold Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)
The unfortunate reality is that *because of the scandal*, and under the current political fallout conditions, it is considered professional suicide to even get evolved with it. Any projects you are working on will immediately become unfunded, even those not directly related to Cold Fusion. The politics are a formidable problem with moving the technology forward, and that is not likely to change any time soon. Someday it will no longer be taboo to work on it, but for now don't hold your breath. Bad politics can kill almost any 'good thing' despite the clear benefits it might possess for the future. Right now the only way it will ever move forward is through private funding.
Room-temperature superconductors six years ago... (Score:3, Interesting)
There was also a discovery of a superconducting phase formed at the surface of an N-type diamond substrate six years ago. Since then, Johan Prins has managed to get one paper published in a semiconductor journal, but this work has been almost completely ignored by the scientific community. More disturbingly, to my knowledge, is that there has been no effort to duplicate this astonishing result, nor a single challenge of the experimental method or physics contained within the paper.
The observed behavior is clearly at odds with the presently accepted superconducting theory, and should be welcomed by any open-minded scientist, or at the very least refuted. The accepted theory not only doesn't fit the data for Type-II superconductors, it is useless in practice, and offers no real insight into the physical phenomenon.
Since then, he has postulated a new theory of superconductivity, and a new interpretation* of quantum mechanics, both of which look very reasonable from what I have seen. What is more, his theory accurately models both types of superconductors with the same physics, and is useful enough to engineer new superconductors. If the theory does fit the existing data more accurately, this certainly deserves further investigation.
Though I haven't been able to track down his book, there are chapters of his current and upcoming books here [cathodixx.com]. They at least give insight into his ideas. My crude understanding follows, and I look forward to the completed book.
The fundamental idea, is that the the wave equation is not a probability distribution of a point particle, but a harmonic wave which represents the mass distribution of the particle, the complex part of which is actually another dimension. There are no particles, only waves, and all are subject to appropriate boundary conditions. The extra dimension also provides a pair of entangled "particles" a mechanism for action at a distance--they are in reality a single wave. Photons are waves without mass, and may entangle with an electron, imparting energy in the process. An interesting point, is that in Kaluza-Klein theory, Einstein's field equations and Maxwell's equations fall out of general relativity, simply by assuming an extra dimension.
Anyway, as applied to his superconducting discovery, the electrons actually entangle into a single electron wave, and form what he calls an array of orbitals. It is a purely electronic Bose-Einstein condensate, which is stable at room temperature, and where charge moves not by some convoluted electron-pair and phonon interaction, but by a quantum effect, in what is otherwise essentially an insulator. This same array is asserted to form within metals, or within the ceramic superconductors between layers, where there are sufficient donor atoms. All that is required is for the right density of orbitals to form and entangle, and that charge carriers be anchored somewhere, so that they can not undergo acceleration and collisions. (Which is why the best conductors do not superconduct.)
* the currently accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics is unsatisfying to say the least. The math is useful, but who really believes that wave-particle duality and the statistical interpretation are not a mere mathematical construct, but the foundation of reality? Never once did I believe that, nor did Einstein or Schrödinger, and it is disturbing that people would so easily accept it as fact.
Re:Well, I seem to remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's the other way around. Nepal is close enough to India as the USA is close enough to Mexico. India's police are famous for their corruption, just like Mexico's police. Nepal, however, is the home of the Gurkha, who are highly valued in Singapore as highly professional, uncorrupted, and impartial police and paramilitary, as well as renowned for their fighting skills and their service within the British military. Similarly, the USA is known for its military prowess, whereas Mexico's military has a track record of almost unbroken losses.
Re:The Other Important Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Superconductors tend to lose superconductivity in the presence of a large magnetic field, limiting the amount of current they can carry.
Type I yes. Type II no.
The latter makes current whirlpools that pinch the magnetic field into little quantized columns, which arrange themselves in a hexagonal grid. Superconduction quits in the narrow column where the mag field penetrates, but continues just fine in the rest of the material, dodging around the columns. The field must be very strong to make a lattice of mag field penetrations so dense that they merge and all superconduction crosswise to the mag field quits.
Not that it matters:
Superconductors are useful for a LOT of stuff besides carrying power around. Being able to make thin-film superconductor elements with a critical temperature, not just of an air conditioned room, but of a human body with a moderately high fever, would be very useful. (You could keep it cool enough to keep working, even inside a piece of hot equipment on a hot day, with a Peltier junction cooler. No problem.)
Re: move along now (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Of course! (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that the data (figure 2 in the arxiv paper - everyone should check this out btw)...
Direct link, for the lazy: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1007.2736v1 [arxiv.org]. Figure 2, top right corner of page 3.
He's merely putting this out in the wild to get feedback from other researchers in the field (which is solely what Arxiv is used for by serious researchers, not as a publication destination).
Speaking as a junior researcher, I use Arxiv as a publication destination so that people can find my papers, and real journals to prove that they're worthwhile (ie, that they've passed peer review). The real journals might as well not even publish them, almost - just so long as they confirm that a paper was submitted and accepted.
Re:Cold Fusion (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the true scandal. Yes, Pons and Fleischmann screwed up and announced very much prematurely. But people's careers were destroyed merely for publicly allowing the possibility that they might be on to something.
I don't know any better demonstration of the corruption that pervades Big Science.
I hear the Chinese are working very hard on cold fusion. How sad it will be if they figure it out first.
Re:Of course! (Score:4, Interesting)
Totally agree. I too find that the measurements reported in the paper are quite suspicious. Furthermore I have noticed that there is no mention about the oscillator frequency used for collecting the data shown in figure 2, so it is difficult to judge how much significant is the "kink" upon which most of the paper claims are standing. It is also questionable the fact that he had to use a current excitation signal at 20 Hz in order to improve the measurement. PZT is a well-known piezoelectric material, so I wonder if his measurements were simply contaminated by noise induced by periodical mechanical vibrations: unfortunately in the paper there is no mention about the physical setup of his experiment (neither he reports how many PZT strips he tested...).
By the way...IAAP, although not working on superconductors :-(
Re:Yeah, right (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, Hans Blix (the chief UN weapons Inspector at the time) said several times in 2002 that Saddam was not cooperating with UN Resolutions which called for military enforcement. He also somehow thought the sanctions were working; when he himself kept stating they were failing. It is not W.'s fault Saddam was more concerned about Iran knowing he didn't have WMDs than convincing the USA he didn't have any. And England and France saw the same Intel the US did, and came to the same conclusions. Only Germany had real reservations about the intelligence.
The real lesson of March 2003 is that the UN is a joke that outlived its usefulness. Either Saddam defies the UN with impunity; or the USA defies the UN to enforce the UN;s own policies. Either way, there's nothing the UN can do.
And hey look, Iran is doing the same damn thing right now!