High-Temperature Metal Superconductor Beckons 88
drkrypton writes: "The Globe and Mail is reporting on a new metal which has a superconducting temperature of -234 C or approx. 39 K. While this is still much colder than some ceramic superconductors (which have superconducting temperatures of around -113 C or 160 K) it still may have some ramifications in electronics. Hey, I triple dog dare you to lick it." Perhaps it will one day be routine to start a computing session by dumping in some liquid nitrogen onto a yet-higher-temperature superconducting CPU.
SOMEONE HELP (Score:1)
Re:No no no, re-read the HOWTO (Score:1)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Liquid Nitrogen is too cold. (Score:1)
Re:this is just the opening for a new theory (Score:1)
<self-justification>
At least my wrong post gave birth to usefull stuff.
</self-justification>
this is just the opening for a new theory (Score:1)
So if further research evolves into a new theory, researchers will know what to look for in their search for metals with even higher superconducting temperatures.
BTW, it is important that this is about superconducting metals. Ceramics have higher temperatures, but are inflexible and very difficult to make something out of them, especially thin long wires.
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:1)
Re:SuperCool? (Score:1)
Intel -- just short of Intelligent.
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Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:1)
It can be quite exciting/expensive
Also See High Temperature Superconductors of 02/23 (Score:1)
The other article is here [slashdot.org]
Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:1)
Probably so. But Pons and Fleischman also had an amazing and potentially revolutionary discovery...but because they went public before being reviewed, they caused great embarassment to the scientific community and cold fusion research in particular. In fact, by jumping the gun, they effectively killed cold fusion research in the US (maybe a good thing...). This situation is--I think--worse, because it is a respected publication (not the authors) jumping the gun to get the word out. Probably everything will be OK, but there is a slight chance that the researchers screwed up (perhaps subtly), and by being published without sufficient review, could cause lots of harm to superconductivity research.
Researcher: Please could I have some more money to develop and improve high-Tc metallic superconductors?
Congressman: Hey, weren't we promised great results on that a year ago?! You guys are just trying to milk the taxpayers! No moolah for you!
Re:The publication process (Score:1)
Both referees report: 1 February
So did the referees spend any time reviewing the paper, or did they just read the title, glance at the figures and think "This seems interesting..." and accept it for pub?
Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:1)
what happens when the temperature rises above superconductivity? Will we see a catastrophic failure?
The scenario I'm envisaging is that the computer is chugging along, pumping alot of juice through its superconducting wires. However, the cooling unit failed a while back and now the temperature is rising... all of a sudden the CPU is no longer superconducting, and start heating up from the resistance. Because there's so much juice going through them, they heat up A LOT, until the whole thing just melts.
Is that what would happen? or is there not that sort of phase change behavior?
Re:Liquid Nitrogen is too cold. (Score:1)
The main reason I haven't been experimenting with LN2. I live in a basement, I'm lucky to get sunlight, let alone fresh air.
Later,
ErikZ
This story appears to have disappeared (Score:1)
A superconductor of this nature would be highly beneficial to scientists working in this field, however...surely the applications are numerous. Hopefully the ramifications of what this could mean are being tempered with the necessity of further study before any sort of deployment on a large scale occurs, for to implement such a solution prematurely could have potentially disastrous results.
Re:why is this moded up to 2 (Score:1)
The magnet orients the spins of the protons in the same direction. You apply RF to flip protons, and then recieve RF as they relax.
Course, your other points seem to be right on. (Not that I know much about superconductive materials...)
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
Industrial rev now what? (Score:1)
Maybe in 5 year's time we'll be seeing new houses with liquid gas taps.. and i though washing my hands in the winter sucks..
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:1)
Re:this is just the opening for a new theory (Score:1)
BCS theory does say that the maximum reasonable temperature for phonon-mediated coupling in a homogeneous medium is approximately 27 degrees. Above that temperature, the elastic response of the lattice would have to be so high that the lattice would make a phase change to a more stable state. As this new material appears to be superconducting above this temperature, it implies that its superconductivity arrives by a different mechanism than that described by the classical BCS theory. That was the same reasoning which made the original lanthanum-based high-Tc superconductors such big news the moment they were announced.
Re:Potentially Dangerous (Score:1)
VERY lethal? Ah I see. A good point. If I am only SLIGHTLY killed by a terrorist with a SOMEWHAT lethal device, I'd feel much better than if I were THOROUGHLY killed.
Re:Superconducting metals are the first step. (Score:1)
Dude, you must have been on sabbatical or something, because all your buddies at Heaven's Gate [zdnet.com] already hitched a ride on the mothership.
ya gotta lick it. (Score:1)
I can't believe he skipped the double dog dare,
and went straight for the Triple dog dare!
That's unheard of!
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:1)
Re:I don't mean to gratify a deliberate troll (Score:1)
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Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:1)
Close to the Temp of Liquid Nitrogen (Score:1)
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:1)
Bingo Foo
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Re:Yesterday's news (Score:1)
I'm still not convinced that men did _not_ land on the moon...
liquid nitrogen (Score:1)
Perhaps it will one day be routine to start a computing session by dumping in some liquid nitrogen onto a yet-higher-temperature superconducting CPU.
Liquid nitrogen boils at 77K, which is already below the critical temperatures of existing high temperature superconductors. You don't really need to improve HTSC technology any further to use liquid nitrogen.
Re:Interesting. (Score:1)
Re:SuperCool? (Score:1)
I thought that you had to do that now to keep the Pentium 4 from overheating?
How did this POSSIBLY get an informative moderation? I can see funny maybe, even though the whole joke is getting rather stagnant... but informative?
What are you moderators smoking tonight???
-C
I don't mean to gratify a deliberate troll (Score:1)
This is a very important concept in superconducters. As the flux (magnetic field) penetration increases, the resistance of the superconducter increases in a roughly ohmic nature. Superconductors "pin" flux in vortices in order to prevent this resistance, which leads to dissapitave loss. For movies of this go here [aps.org], and for images of the Z component of flux in High Tc superconductors, go where I worked before I entered the private sector. [wisc.edu]
Please, do your research, I've actually done mine.
Not so hot this time (Score:1)
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
material that converts heat to electricy (Score:1)
If someone researches material that converts heat directly into electron flow (current) than we will have the key. This material would of course absorb heat as it would be turning the kinetic energy of the nucleus into kinetic energy of the electron (wow- thats a lot of energy to be tapped!).
Re:Yesterday's news (Score:1)
So what happens if... (Score:1)
Physics majors wanted! (Score:1)
Is their theory correct? How do superconductors manage to avoid this problem when supercooled?
I carry a 24-hour constant-use tank of liquid nitrogen to keep the sleigh cooled, if you were wondering.
Dancin Santa
Re:material that converts heat to electricy (Score:1)
Top-down in efficiency:
Peltier junctions, an existing technology, are produced by junctions of two metals. When electricity is applied, heat energy flows from one metal to the other. If the current is reversed, heat energy flows the other direction. If heat energy flows from one metal to the other, then a potential voltage is produced. However, in all cases, the Peltier junction, if viewed as an enclosed system with two inputs, increases in temperature and decreases in potential energy.
The second idea is that you harness the kinetic energy of the nucleus itself to create electric energy. This happens in ALL materials, and is why cold materials glow in the infrared. Warmer materials glow in the visible wavelengths (red-hot poker, etc.) The problem here is, to get usable energy out of this system, you have to be at a lower energy point. Meaning you have to be colder than whatever is providing you energy. This provides a theoretical limit on any kind of heat engine. It is against this limit that the efficiency of a heat engine is measured; even if you get a 100% heat engine, that doesn't mean that ALL the heat energy in it is being converted to another type of energy, only that it is at the theoretical limit for efficiency.
And last but not least, zero-flux vacuum energy. I won't go into the details, go here [ldolphin.org] if you want them. The short of it is, virtual particles exist everywhere and there should be ways to tap them. It is often said in this field that there's enough energy in a cup of coffee to boil all the oceans of the world. And there is a way to tap it:
Take two large metal plates in relatively empty space. Infinite plates are ideal, but that's not going to happen any time soon. The important part is that they are reflective and lightweight. Place them close together, parallel, so that the space between them is a resonating cavity for EM radiation. If the empty space is empty enough (i.e. no light energy, etc.), then they will be repelled from each other slightly. This is because the virtual particles forming between them cause light pressure on the reflective surfaces, pushing them apart.
I've heard that this has actually been tried and proven to work, but don't have any concrete documentation. Anyone know any more details?
Anyways, the point is that, with this method, you STILL need a lower-energy point. By setting up the resonating cavity between the two plates, you've basically created a region where zero-point energy is higher than in the area outside the plates.
But don't let me be a complete downer. The energy holding an atom together was untappable at one point for the exact same reasons. Through a combination of superconducting technology for fast efficient energy exchange, nanotechnology for creating quantum cavities, and some as yet undiscovered technology, this could be the way we finally realize the dream of Athena (goddess of the technology of war); to become gods ourselves.
Re:foist (Score:1)
Uhhh.. (Score:1)
Re:this is just the opening for a new theory (Score:1)
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:1)
Superconducting CPU (Score:1)
But I see an other (home) application: Maybe one can build superconducting magnets for the speakers of my stereo...
Re:My favourite: Industrial plasma applications. (Score:1)
I disagree. Most modern HTC's have a property called 'flux pinning'
Under high magnetic fields, the superconductor allows the magnetic field to recide in small 'tubes' within the superconductor. these tubes run through impurities in the ceramic, (which is non superconducting in any event) and is surrounded by supercurrents that keep the field lines in place.
as long as the circular currents is not so hing as to dissallow superconductivity, the bulk of the superconductor behaves as any normal one, that is it is superconducting.
This fenomenon is only found in the 'Type II' superconductors, but all the HighT ones belongs to this category (as far as i recall).
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:1)
Re:Stupid Karma-Horing Post (Score:1)
All your karma are belong to us!
I trust technology with a lot but... (Score:1)
Potentially Dangerous (Score:1)
Although often not considered in open source circles, technology has the potential to be incredibly dangerous and should not always be freely shared. Metallic super-conductors in particular can be used to create very lethal devices.
Liquid nitrogen and other cooling methods are already so cheap, that with the advent of these metallic super-conductors, mobile nuetron pulse devices become a real possibility. Ceramics always lacked the strength to fabricate a large enough super-conducting matrix, but this is no longer a problem when using metals.
The open source community often does not consider this, but some information needs to be kept hidden, and this is an excellent example of such information. We do not need terrorists irradiating our cities and children with devices that can fit in the back of a moving truck. Not all information wants to be free. We simply cannot afford it.
- qpt
750 GHz CPU's (Score:1)
Why Scientists are happy about this: (Score:1)
Don't get your hopes up too quickly, though. Cooling with liquid nitrogen would probably damage internal components, unless the case was really well designed. Who ever thought that a Pentium could run to cold?
Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:2)
Bill - aka taniwha
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Re:Not exactly (Score:2)
As to those superconduction toroids, yeah, coolant failure could be, um, interesting.
Bill - aka taniwha
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Re:Superconducting CPU (Score:2)
You cannot have a material that is both superconducting =and= semi-conducting.
(Superconductors are essentially linear motors at the electron scale.)
Now, it =WOULD= be possible to develop valves that used superconductors, at comparable scales to semi-conductors, as you would essentially have electron streams that you can direct.
How would a superconducting chip work? (Score:2)
Re:How would a superconducting chip work? (Score:2)
There are several ways of using superconductors to build integrated circuits. Using superconducting interconnects would reduce RC time constant delays, but not by a vast amount (the transistors provide most of the resistance).
The most promising approaches use devices other than transistors to perform switching. My favourite method was described in IEEE Spectrum a while back (kuro5hin article here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2000
Re:Superconducting CPU (Score:2)
The usual approaches are to either make wiring superconducting (reducing resistive losses a bit), or to use devices other than transistors to perform the switching (a few alternatives exist).
I've linked to my personal favourite method in another post in this article (click "user info" to find it).
Re:My favourite: Industrial plasma applications. (Score:2)
I disagree. Most modern HTC's have a property called 'flux pinning' Under high magnetic fields, the superconductor allows the magnetic field to recide in small 'tubes' within the superconductor. these tubes run through impurities in the ceramic, (which is non superconducting in any event) and is surrounded by supercurrents that keep the field lines in place. as long as the circular currents is not so hing as to dissallow superconductivity, the bulk of the superconductor behaves as any normal one, that is it is superconducting.
The problem is that breakdown (caused by these flux tubes widening until they meet) *still* occurs at a much lower field strength in type II than in very cold type I superconductors. The strongest superconducting magnet I've ever heard of was an 8-T liquid helium-cooled magnet designed for use in a particle accelerator. If I understand correctly, breakdown for known type II materials is closer to 1 T.
Re:The publication process (Score:2)
Pouring LN2 on your machine before startup? Done! (Score:2)
Cooling with Fluorinert and liquid nitrogen. If only the Fluorinert wouldn't gel up, it would be perfect:)
Re:this is just the opening for a new theory (Score:2)
Re:This story appears to have disappeared (Score:2)
All your event [openschedule.org] are belong to us.
Well... (Score:2)
We can only dream timothy, we can only dream...
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Some thoughts (Score:2)
"My ic2 liquied H2 chip can quick your wimpiums P10-ICE's ass" -joy-
room temperature vs. reachable temperature (Score:2)
Well, to be honest I doubt that we'll reach room-temp or higher superconductors any time soon (== next hundred years or so). How ever, I suspect that in the next 20-50 years we'll discover a superconductor whose critical temperature is reachable with common industrial refridgerants (like say -40 C instead of -113). This is an easier goal to reach energetically and would open the field to industrial applications like the cool plasma deposition things the other poster was speaking of.
I did a little research into this field a few years back in a special topics class (as a chemist). My impression was that superconducting compounds (I was studying the Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide family) were superconducting by virtue of "channels" forming through the crystalline structure that had surrounding electron densities just right such that free electrons could flow "down" them with 0 resistance, and that since the surrounding atoms "wiggled around" too much at T > Tcrit, the "channels" were disrupted. Or something. I was a chemist, and a freshman, so I wasn't exposed to a lot of the real underlying theory.
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News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:2)
The other reply by Mr. Currie is very correct. Small additional note: really cold metals still have really low resistance, even if it ain't exactly zero. :-) So unless by T > Tcrit you mean T = 500 K or something, it probably won't die horribly. I'd guess you'd see increasing glitchiness as T rose, leading to total system failure. So you'd have functional warnings besides temp alarms (much like a computer that's overclocked too much now).
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News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
Not exactly (Score:2)
Depending on wiring self-inductance there could be a lot of energy stored on the circuit. If you try to change the current circulating through an inductor there will appear a voltage drop that's inductive, not resistive. At a certain point when temperature rises, such a computer could spit out a lot of sparks.
There has been designs for energy storage in large superconducting inductors. As a safeguard against cooling failure, one such design enclosed the inductor in an underground aluminum enclosure. As long as the inductor is cooled below Tc, the aluminum is effectively an insulator compared to the superconductor, since its resisitivity is small but finite. But if the inductor lost its superconductivity, the current would start circulating through the aluminum and would be dissipated by heating, possibly melting, the aluminum. That's why it was designed to be underground.
Re:Superconducting metals are the first step. (Score:2)
brain dumped
#rm brain
#universal_mind -load next_victim.brain
#universal_mind caused a...
Re:Superconducting metals are the first step. (Score:2)
Yeah, it has always paid off to be early adopters of new technology. I think I can wait for the first bugfixes, you go first!
The Many Uses of HTS's (Score:2)
1. With a sufficient cooling system, your computer's current drain would drop to, maybe an amp. (Hey, the hard drive's gotta get its juice from somewhere!)
Maybe in the near future, if we get HTS's up to 0 Celsius, we could read about projects to wire your freezer and motherboard together.
2. Train tracks could be dual-used as power distribution. (Nice thought that the L would also be the thing juicing up my home entertainment rig. On second thought, maybe not
Added bonus of an XHTS maglev: MUCH lower maintenance costs. Few to nil moving parts means less wear and tear.
The electric company and the public transit authority save oodles of cash.
3. The cost of an MRI would drop. MRI's use superconducting solenoids to produce the immence magnetic fields needed to produce those lovely polychrome images of the inside of your cavesa.
4. Again, thanks to lower-maintenance superconducting solenoids, high-temp fusion is a step closer to reality.
just thinkin' out loud
d.valued
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
Re:why is this moded up to 2 (Score:2)
"Unfortunately, cooling something to 1K will require something along the lines of laser cooling in order to achieve, and this turns out to not be very practical."
uhh, no. optical molasses type laser cooling only works for a handfull of atoms at once and only when in the gaseous state.
"Superconductors with a very low critical temperature cannot conduct much current before they exceed their critical energy level and "go normal"."
uhm no. type I superconductors which have low Tc's conduct huge amounts of current and withstand large magnetic fields(read MRI nobium electromagnet wire)
"Useful superconductors are more in the line of HTC's, high temperature superconductors"
not really. metal superconductors are used far more often and cooled to 4K with Liquid He. ductility of the metal superconductors beats brittle high temperature capable ones.
"If I recall correctly, the highest published HTC was around 175K"
no the highest Tc is 135K for a mercury based ceramic.
"Superconductors aren't too useful for their property of not conducting current, since they have a critical maximum current level anyway."
what? im assuming you meant their ability to conduct without resistance and not high resistance, in which case you'd better check your sources because thats just about all theyre ever used for in commercial applications.
"cooled by liquid helium, which is somewhere down on the order of 10K"
liquid He is at 4K.
". They are mostly used for their diamagnetic properties (they repel magnetic flux lines). This is the basis for how an MRI works"
no, it dosent matter that the nobium wire in the MRI machine is a perfect diamagnet because no one cares about that property in an MRI. the superconducting Nb is used to more easily create a high magnetic field to flip the spins of protons in your body.
Stupid Karma-Horing Post (Score:2)
-234 C = -389.2 F
C=Celsius/centigrade: Of or relating to a temperature scale that registers the freezing point of water as 0 and the boiling point as 100 under normal atmospheric pressure
F=Fahrenheit: Of or relating to a temperature scale that registers the freezing point of water as 32F and the boiling point as 212F at one atmosphere of pressure.
K=kelvin: A unit of absolute temperature equal to 1/273.16 of the absolute temperature of the triple point of water. This unit is equal to one Celsius degree.
superconducting: displaying properties of superconductivity: The flow of electric current without resistance in certain metals, alloys, and ceramics at temperatures near absolute zero, and in some cases at temperatures hundreds of degrees above absolute zero.
absolute zero: The temperature at which substances possess no thermal energy, equal to -273.15C, or -459.67F
ceramic: Any of various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing a nonmetallic mineral, such as clay, at a high temperature.
lick: To pass the tongue over or along
Re:Superconducting CPU (Score:2)
Instead there is a device called a Josephson Junction that can switch at terahertz frequencies.
Check out the Scientific American [sciam.com] article.
IMO Josephson Junctions would make for a great CPU!
Re:Cool... or rather, cold (Score:2)
The Leidenfrost effect rocks. One of my physics profs knew a guy who used to do demonstrations for grade school kids. Part of his act was to put a bit of liquid nitrogen in his mouth, then spit it back out. No harm was done as long as he spit it out quickly. One time, though, he accidentally swallowed it. Nothing got frozen, but the resulting belch was one for the record books.
Re:Physics majors wanted! (Score:2)
Superconductors are, as the name implies, conductors. Conductors (unlike semiconductors) have a conductivity that is a maximum at low temperatures, and decreases with increasing temperature (the opposite of semiconductors). Superconductors are a class of materials that conduct with zero resistance (i.e., infinite conductivity) below some threshold temperature. Virtually all conductors become superconductors at a low enough temperature (~0 K). High-temp superconductors have a threshold temperature significantly higher than 0 K.
Superconducting CPU (Score:2)
There is something important to take note of. (Score:2)
A cursory glance at the pre-publish pdf [nature.com] shows that, even when zero field cooled (brought below transition temperature in the absence of a magnetic field, the field applied after the material is already cold), the MgB2 pellets created by Nagamatsu et al are fairly susceptible to flux penetration. Make no mistake, MgB2 materials will be perfected, and may compete with NbTi in the future, but they are still quite a ways off.
If you take the time to take a look at figure 4 of the writeup though, you will clearly see that MgB2 is superconducting, but Niobium Titanium wires have proven useful up to ~45T (tesla), whereas, in a 10 Oe (oersted) field, MgB2 ZFC was succeptible to roughly 1.2T.
Still a damned fine piece of work.
Ummmm....yeah (Score:2)
I'd make a comment about lowered stock prices forcing the crew to buy much cheaper crack, but the mod-bots apparently grep for the phrase "stock price" and auto-decrement.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Re:another article on discovery (Score:2)
The material in question is magnesium diboride or MgB2, which would almost have to be a borderline ceramic/intermetallic, which means it won't be much easier to process than a ceramic.
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Superconductors for Dummies (Score:2)
Useful superconductors are more in the line of HTC's, high temperature superconductors. The simplest of these are the superconductors that work when cooled to the order of 70 degrees Kelvin (-200C) by liquid nitrogen (which is cheaper than beer). If I recall correctly, the highest published HTC was around 175K, which is only 100 degrees below freezing. I've heard rumors of higher temperature superconductors, but haven't seen any referreed publications of results yet. Keep your eyes peeled, we'll see room-temperature superconductors within the lifetimes of most slashdotters.
To be fair to lower temperature superconductors, I believe the maglev train in Japan uses a lower temperature superconductor cooled by liquid helium, which is somewhere down on the order of 10K.
Superconductors aren't too useful for their property of not conducting current, since they have a critical maximum current level anyway. They are mostly used for their diamagnetic properties (they repel magnetic flux lines). This is the basis for how an MRI works, or for how super-fast magnetic trains work.
Re:this is just the opening for a new theory (Score:3)
So anyway, on to what I mean by "conventional" superconductor. Electrons in metals interact with the underlying crystalline lattice; momentum is exchanged by causing the lattice to vibrate. Normally, two electrons will repel each other, since they both have negative electric charges. However, in a crystal, the lattice can mediate an effective ATTRACTIVE interaction between electrons (an electron-phonon-electron interaction, for those who like terminology). Thus the electrons can form bound pairs, which behave quite differently than lone electrons (they behave like "bosons"), and the system can enter the superconducting state (which is rather similar to the superfluid state in, e.g., liquid helium-4). Just what that state is would require a much longer explanation.
As a consequence of the fact that the electron pairing is due to the lattice, the transition temeperature (and other properties) of a conventional superconductor is influenced by the mass of the nuclei in the lattice. This phenomenon is known as the "isotope effect", and was a key piece of evidence which lead to the development of the BCS theory. I felt I had to correct the parent post precisely because of this fact. This recently discovered superconductor shows a variation of transition temperature with boron isotope mass which is just about exactly what the theory of the isotope effect predicts. This is STRONG evidence that this new MgB2 superconductor is a conventional superconductor, albeit one with an unexpectedly high transition temperature.
The "high-Tc" (ceramic, YBCO, etc.) superconductors seem to have a different pairing mechanism (i.e. not electron-phonon-electron, as in BCS), and thus require a different theoretical explanation. That doesn't mean BCS is wrong, just that the ~15 year-old ceramics are in a different class of materials.
another article on discovery (Score:3)
SuperCool? (Score:3)
I thought that you had to do that now to keep the Pentium 4 from overheating?
Cool... or rather, cold (Score:4)
God I hope not. Remnants of that one X-Files episode where that poor unfortunate sap falls into the liquid nitrogen abound.
I can just see myself probing around in my computer case, accidentally hyper-freezing it and then smashing it to pieces against my desk.
Well, for me... (Score:4)
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Liquid Nitrogen + celeron 366 (Score:4)
My favourite: Industrial plasma applications. (Score:5)
I think that the most important applications are going to be the ones that are impractical to accomplish with conventional conductors (logically enough). All of the applications you mention would be _helped_ by superconductors, but are getting by adequately without them (wheels work fine on most trains, for instance).
One of the more interesting applications on the horizon is plasma manipulation. We already have many tools that use plasma as a working medium (etchers, torches), but there are a number of fun things you can build if you don't have to worry about resistance in your magnet coils and related circuits.
My personal favourite plasma application is a fabricator that uses patterned plasma deposition. This would work with a wide variety of materials, unlike normal fabricators. You need a plasma because otherwise it's difficult to confine and pattern your source materials. Superconductors would be useful because the most interesting fabricator design I can think of requires wobbling of a very strong magnetic field TV-scan-style, which would have horrible resistive losses if implemented with conventional components.
Fabrication by plasma deposition is much too expensive to be competitive for most things, but there are niche markets.
Fusion power is one of the more interesting plasma applications, though superconductors may not ever be up to the task. You can Brute Force a better fusion reactor by using a stronger magnetic field, but resistive heating of the magnet coils is only part of the problem. Outward pressure on the coils due to magnetic is one of the main engineering design limits to magnetic confinement reactors. There's also the problem of superconductors breaking down in strong magnetic fields, which renders them useless for high-field applications. High-temperature superconductors are especially bad for this.
In practice, problems with fusion are likely to be solved by clever design as opposed to brute force and ignorance solutions.
Thinking of more applications is left as an exercise to the reader; these are just my personal favourites.
The publication process (Score:5)
Manuscript received: 30 January 2001
sent to 2 referees: 31 January
Both referees report: 1 February
approved: 2 February
scheduled for an issue: 2 Feb
Updated manuscript received: 2 Feb
proofs available to author: 6 Feb
Author returned proofs (on the web): 8 Feb 2001
A final proof of the article available just over one week after being submitted, and going through a complete peer-review cycle!
More typically each step takes a week or two, though times have been generally improving lately.
But these new superconductors are pretty important!
Also interesting is that Nature has a nice "prepublication" [nature.com] look at the article on the original research, which they are publishing March 1 - Nature in the past has had an "embargo" policy preventing scientists from even talking to journalists about their work before the official publication date, but they've had this page up roughly since we published our related article online. The nature of scientific publishing is changing too here...
Re:Ummmm....yeah (Score:5)
Also, the first ceramic high Tc superconductors were found at 40K and were quickly tuned to reach higher temperatures.
Also, MgB2 is non-toxic and available in mass quantities cheaply. If it can be made to superconduct at 77K (liquid nitrogen temperatures) with an appreciable current density, it truly would be a revolutionary advancment for superconducting applications.
That is why Nature posted the article on their website before it had been reviewed or published-- it truly is an amazing and potentially revolutionary discovery.
Redudant (Score:5)
High-Temperature Superconductors: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/23/191222 [slashdot.org]