Scientists Create Room Temperature Superconductor 380
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:5, Informative)
"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? (Score:5, Informative)
Though in any event characterizing the behavior of high-pressure materials is valuable.
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This sidestepping means you can take it out of the lab without having it tethered to a fridge or anvil.
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:4, Interesting)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but will it increase the pressure enough to achieve superconductivity?
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Re:Room-pressure? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:4, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:4, Funny)
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Feh. You were obviously not brought up in my house. Cold goes only through the open door. Ask my father.
(And yes, we both know that cold doesn't go anywhere, heat does...)
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Since convection is one of the three heat transfer mechanisms, then movement of cold mass and subsequent dilution with a warmer mass, viz. cold coming in, is a valid description of heat transfer.
How much pressure? (Score:5, Interesting)
If a power cable at the bottom of the ocean is under enough pressure, it could be very useful.
Re:How much pressure? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Room-pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But if it does go wrong, things could be bad. Superconductors are laready prone to explosive failure if a superconductor suddenly ceasews to superconduct. If that is inside a very high pressure vessel, the available energy from a destructive malfunction is frightening : Mega-amps of electicity and giga-pascals of pressure suddenly being unleashed in the wrong place.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "you let the magic smoke out".
With this new technology, I imagine a lot fewer people will be alive to say this. Overclockers beware-- these chips will let YOUR smoke out too!
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Applications? (Score:2, Interesting)
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The biggest issue right now in most maglev is the energy required to cool the wires in the tracks.
Re:Applications? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Applications? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Applications? (Score:5, Informative)
Umm... (Score:5, Informative)
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On an grim note, i happened to notice a distinct lack of American presence in this announcement. Seems to be a Canadian/German thing. Y'know, that science stuff the US is running away from at full tilt (i work at a large US atom smasher that, like a *lot* of other Big and L'il Science Thangs, got a major budgetary wedgie this year). At least i still have
worth a read (Score:5, Interesting)
You might find this [american.com] worth a read in considering the future of science in the US.
Re:worth a read (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Umm... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Also: I understand that silanes are VERY toxic. (Score:3, Informative)
Also: I hear silanes (beyond n=1) are VERY toxic.
Back in my undergraduate days my chemistry teaching fellow was doing research on them. He claimed that the ones he was working on were so toxic that if you could smell them you had already exceeded the fatal dose.
(Now he might have been feeding me and the rest of the class a line of bull. But I wasn't about to argue with him. It WAS his thesis project, which implies that he should know what
Room temperature superconductors? (Score:5, Funny)
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I don't believe it (Score:2, Insightful)
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In related news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In related news (Score:5, Informative)
(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.
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obviously beer drinkers (Score:3, Funny)
Its a bomb (Score:5, 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 (Score:5, Funny)
* Room-temperature superconductors
* Computers that explode violently
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Re:Its a bomb (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Its a bomb (Score:4, Informative)
- Make a wire of the material.
- Clad material with a metal coating at high temperature.
- 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 (Score:5, Funny)
Said material melts at 88 kelvins. It'd be like galvanizing an ice cream cone.
Re:Its a bomb (B-field) (Score:3)
Incidentally, just how much magnetic field can this superconductor take. Temperature is only one Achilles heel of superconductors, the o
Imagine the weapon capabilities? (Score:2)
Please hold your breath and run... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Please hold your breath and run... (Score:5, Funny)
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Obligatory room-temperature Tick quote (Score:2)
Superconducting Monster cables? (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy step now (Score:4, Insightful)
Hot - I mean - Lukewarm Damn! (Score:2)
Now they just have to solve the pressure problem...
Vernacular change? (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Vernacular change? (Score:5, Funny)
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
I guess we need to update the "Holy Grail"... (Score:2)
This is NOT room temperature superconductivity! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is NOT room temperature superconductivity! (Score:5, Informative)
The money quote from the paper:
Damn you samzenpus (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're newer here than I am.
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Re:Damn you samzenpus (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
pressure, temperature... (Score:2)
The group in Germany that did the experimental work specializes in doing measurements of pressures of ~100 GPa. It looks like they use diamond anvils, http://www.mpg.de/bilderBerichteDokumente/dokumentation/pressemitteilungen/2004/pressemitteilung200408022/index.html [www.mpg.de] . So, okay, this would be a really earthshattering development if it led to superconductors that work at room temperature and at ordinary pressures, but it sounds like that may not happen. We already have superconductors that work at liquid ni
room temperature still requires cooling (Score:2)
at least anywhere south of the artic circle
hey... (Score:2)
Buckytubes as containers? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Simple answer..... (Score:3, Funny)
There is both more and less than meets the eye (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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So what (Score:5, Insightful)
- 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: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So what (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:So what (Score:5, Funny)
No, you'd still need the audiophile.
(i kid because i care... ok, you caught me. I don't really care)
Re:So what (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So what (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what (Score:4, Informative)
So even with superconducting transmission lines, you still have the incentive to up the voltage as much as possible to increase the power carrying capability of a single line.
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
Layne
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Actually I found this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen#Discovery [wikipedia.org]
In March 1996, however, a group of scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that they had serendipitously produced, for about a microsecond and at temperatures of thousands of kelvin and pressures of over a million atmospheres (>100 GPa), the first identifiably metallic hydrogen.[3] ...
The scientists were surprised to find that, as pressure rose to 1.4 million atmospheres (142 GPa), the electronic energy band gap, a measure of electrical resistance, fell to almost zero. The band-gap of hydrogen in its uncompressed state is about 15 eV, making it an insulator but, as the pressure increases significantly, the band-gap gradually falls to 0.3 eV and because the 0.3 eV is provided by the thermal energy of the fluid (the temperature became about 3000 K due to compression of the sample), the hydrogen may, at this point, effectively be considered metallic.
Even stranger it might be possible to make Metastable Metallic Hydrogen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen#Fuel [wikipedia.org]
It may be possible to produce substantial quantities of metallic hydrogen for practical purposes. The existence has been theorized of a form called 'Metastable Metallic Hydrogen', (abbreviated MSMH) which would not immediately revert to ordinary hydrogen upon the release of pressure.
In addition, 'MSMH' would make an efficient fuel itself and also a clean one, with only water as an end product. Nine times as dense as standard hydrogen, it would give off considerable energy when reverting to standard hydrogen. Burned more quickly, it could be a propellant with five times the efficiency of liquid H2/O2, the current Space Shuttle fuel. Unfortunately, the 'Lawrence Livermore' experiments produced metallic hydrogen too briefly to determine whether or not metastability is possible.
Since it's ultradense hydrogen, I wonder if you could use it in a fusion reactor? The Wikipedia article says cautiously that 'increased understanding of the behavior of h