New Paper Confirms Near-Room-Temperature Superconductivity In Wild, Hydrogen-Rich Material (gizmodo.com) 120
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: A team of physicists has published peer-reviewed results documenting near-room-temperature superconductivity in the hydrogen-rich compound lanthanum hydride. The team, led by physicist Mikhail Eremets from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, kicked off the most recent race for a high-temperature superconducting hydride in 2015, when they published a paper announcing the discovery of superconductivity at -70 Celsius (-94 Fahrenheit). In this most recent paper, the researchers placed a piece of lanthanum into an insulating ring, then placed it into a box full of pressurized hydrogen gas. They clamped the gasket between a pair of diamonds, and continued squeezing the diamonds until they hit the desired pressures, nearly 2 million times the pressure on the surface of Earth. Then, they hit the sample with a laser to form the lanthanum hydride. Finally, they take measurements to confirm they really created the material and that it's really a superconductor. The researchers detail two measurements in the paper: In one, they measure the resistance drop to zero at the -23 Celsius or -9.67 Fahrenheit temperature. In another, they notice that this temperature decreases in the presence of a magnetic field -- a clue that they were actually measuring the sample rather than something being wrong with their experimental setup.
Re:Not anywhere near room temp (Score:5, Funny)
You clearly don't work in the same office as I do.
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It's a lot closer to room temp than -170C is.
Re:Not anywhere near room temp (Score:4, Informative)
But does it actually matter? Superconductors that could be cooled by liquid nitrogen at atmospheric pressures were a huge breakthrough in terms of practical use, but even if you were able to create a superconductor that operated at 30C, it would be completely useless if it required two million atmospheres of pressure to do so.
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If this material actually needed 2 million atmospheres to operate, that would be a really big omission from the summary.
I was about to chastise you, but instead I think I shoudl say "Well played, sir!". This is subtle snark indeed. A big omission it is!
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Don't you think it would be a bigger omission to *NOT* state that it could operate outside of such a pressurized environment? What do you think is the point of calling it "high temperature, high pressure superconductivity" if high pressure is not required for superconductivity to be reached?
You suggest that pressure doesn't generally affect the conductivity of a solid, but this very story shows that it does.
Re: Not anywhere near room temp (Score:2)
No, I think it would be better if it were more clearly stated but i inferred that the high-pressure environment was needed only for the creation of the substance.
Re: Not anywhere near room temp (Score:5, Informative)
Pressure like that is used to create materials, but isn't usually maintained afterwards unless something weird is going on
In this case, it has to stay squoze. The compound forms at 160 GP, and the superconductivity disappears if the pressure drops below 150 GP.
Neither the TFS nor TFA make this clear, and the article is paywalled. But here is a link to the abstract [nature.com].
This is a big breakthrough. It is not practical in itself, but it will help us understand how HTSCs work, and will lead to new ideas for future research.
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"Preliminary analysis indicates that our rivals have developed a safe and reliable method to simulate conditions existing on the interior of a stellar mass. The fabrication and transmutation of materials possible in such an environment guarantees significant industrial and military applications." ,"Top Secret Report"
-- Probe Team Operations Directorate
It's just a matter do developing our technology with regards to Nanometallurgy and Nanominiaturization. This will eventually lead to the ability to make a s
Re:Not anywhere near room temp (Score:5, Informative)
No, they only used high pressure to create the material; it doesn't require that kind of pressure to operate.
No, sorry, you are flat wrong. They clamped the gasket between a pair of diamonds, and continued squeezing the diamonds until they hit the desired pressures, nearly 2 million times the pressure on the surface of Earth. Then, they hit the sample with a laser to form the lanthanum hydride. Finally, they take measurements to confirm they really created the material and that it’s really a superconductor. [gizmodo.com]
Nothing about relieving the pressure before taking the measurement, nor would I expect it, having some slight clue about the physics involved.
This is why reading comprehension matters, kids
Are you this fucking arrogant in real life? Not to mention your reading comprehension problems. Irony much.
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InstantPot Superconductor coming soon to your kitchen!
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The diamond squeezing thing makes a lot more sense. I was imagining a sealed cable that has an internal air pressure that high and was wondering how they'd do that.
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Such a sealed cable would likely be a new kind of bomb.
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Re:Not anywhere near room temp (Score:5, Informative)
No, they only used high pressure to create the material; it doesn't require that kind of pressure to operate.
This is why reading comprehension matters, kids.
A little less snark there gramps, since you did not bother clicking through to look at any of the actual papers. The title of the breakthrough paper in December is Superconductivity at 250 K in lanthanum hydride under high pressures [arxiv.org] and in the abstract we read:
Here, we report superconductivity with a record Tc ~ 250 K within the Fm-3m structure of LaH10 at a pressure P ~ 170 GPa. We proved the existence of superconductivity at 250 K through the observation of zero-resistance, isotope effect, and the decrease of Tc under an external magnetic field, which suggests an upper critical magnetic field of 120 T at zero-temperature. The pressure dependence of the transition temperatures Tc (P) has a maximum of 250-252 K at the pressure of about 170 GPa. This leap, by ~ 50 K, from the previous Tc record of 203 K indicates the real possibility of achieving RTSC (that is at 273 K) in the near future at high pressures and the perspective of conventional superconductivity at ambient pressure.
So no, it absolutely does require pressures of 170 GPa (1.7 million atmospheres). I imagine you saw the title and thought "Just like a diamond!" then assumed your leap was a valid conclusion. No, most high pressure physics has nothing at all to do with making stuff that is stable at room temperature
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Indeed it does. Read TFA and associated paper, and you will find that it only works when under this extreme pressure.
So, no, you aren't going to get a practical application from this exact experiment. But they learned something new, maybe this will lead them down a more practical path in the future. Or maybe not. Just like all previous science has worked.
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This is why reading comprehension matters, kids.
I like how you sacrificed yourself to demonstrate this from the practical standpoint.
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Go back to chemistry. Lanthanum Hydride cannot exist at atmospheric pressures.
Re:Not anywhere near room temp (Score:5, Insightful)
...even if you were able to create a superconductor that operated at 30C, it would be completely useless if it required two million atmospheres of pressure to do so.
Liquid helium temperatures are several orders of magnitude easier to achieve than two megabar pressures. Good old niobium-tin at 18.7 K is astronomically more practical than anything requiring ultra-high pressure.
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As we don't know all there is to know about superconductors, it is a big deal scientifically.
Connections in science are always hard to predict. By itself, it may not be that interesting, but it may lead to world-changing things -- like refrigeration or the electric motor.
Remember that Aluminum wasn't terribly interesting until nearly a century after it was discovered - it was a soft, extremely expensive metal.
Now we literally can't live without it (or at least, the majority of the Human population, as Alumi
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Off topic : Hypothesis :
So I'm trying to do some mental math and while right now it's of no use, I do see where it might work in our local solar system. but the numbers don't jive right and it's seems more of a failure than success
In a fast enough orbit around the sun, you could create a stable platform, use the platform to create crushing force of that will create the conductivity.
I'm thinking that the sun's gravity being used is a reverse way of a hydraulic press with the orbit providing pulling forces
Hey
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Not just that. It seems this only works at incredible pressures inside a diamond anvil.
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From the description, it seems that pressure is needed to create the material, not for using it.
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From the description, it seems that pressure is needed to create the material, not for using it.
What? A /. summary not perfectly accurate? I never!
It does require high pressures.
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Fair enough. Reading some of the comments, it does appear that high pressure is needed.
It was more that the summary, taken directly from the linked article, was a bit vague on the matter.
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Below 0C is not anywhere near room temp.
Depends on where your room is.
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STFU! I didn't read TFA yet but if this is true, I'd gladly be happy with 0C for the time being. I have been advocating for research in this field for ever although I feel it is neglected in favor of more catching memes.
Something planet savers should be aware of. Power grids on the planet lose 25-30% of the energy put into them in pure heat. Now, talk seriously about global warming. But since it is electricity and by definition clean, nobody seems to care about it.
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Power grids on the planet lose 25-30% of the energy put into them in pure heat.
Where do you get this figure? Everything I have heard is dramatically lower. Such as 6% electricity lost in the US power grid.
Transmission losses are likely to increase in the future, but I would be surprised if they hit 10%.
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Just fricking google it for pete's sake. This ain't no so well kept secrets! Here are some conservative numbers, they usually keep out the heat dissipated by transformers near you house to make figures look nicer. I do the same in my field when I need budget.
https://data.worldbank.org/ind... [worldbank.org]
https://www.quora.com/What-is-... [quora.com]
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Just fricking google it for pete's sake. This ain't no so well kept secrets!
Apparently not -- in your first link the U.S. comes in at 6%, just like OP said. What are you getting at?
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Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I see what you're doing there.
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according to my own link, you are right about 6% US average because coal plants can be located close from the targets just as solar and wind sometimes, which is a winner.
Power loss when Quebec supplies US with power is more like 12-18% depending on the technology of the transmission line. This is all due to the distance that needs to be covered.
In the end, OK, I'll say in 2019, more like 15-20%. Thanks for the update.
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Actual grid transmission losses tend to total under 5% in the USA. Conversion losses are a real thing, but they happen in the home, not on the grid.
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There are conversion losses all over the grid. At the step down between transmission lines and distribution lines, and then another step down at the pole. Of course, those tend to be 95+% efficient.
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Power grids on the planet lose 25-30% of the energy put into them in pure heat. ...
No, they don't.
They lose about 5% - 7% and most to em radiation and not heat
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It's relatively near room temp. It's significantly easier to keep things a little below 0C than around -170C
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The superconducting state only exists at 1.7 million atmospheres. It is not just being "made" at that pressure. This is nothing like the metastable pure carbon crystal called "diamond".
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Are they sturdy? The problem with most high-T_c superconductors has been that they are just too brittle to use practically.
Integrated circuits aren't "sturdy" by any means, yet they work because they're encapsulated in a protective material. Fragility isn't necessarily a roadblock.
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You make a fairly common mistake, which is making analogies of mechanical properties between two extremely different length scales. The contents of an IC do not have to stretch over meters or kilometers in order to be useful. Superconductivity is mainly useful on very long length scales, but "sturdiness" drops dramatically as size increases.
This discovery might be useful eventually, but probably not in the near future. More likely, by the time we would have the technology to use it, we will have discovered
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You make a fairly common mistake, which is making analogies of mechanical properties between two extremely different length scales.
Not necessarily- small scale superconducting could useful in a million different applications (such as ICs) and wouldn't need to stretch over meters or kilometers in order to be useful.
Everyone dreams of the day we'll have superconducting transmission lines, but I don't think that's a practical or realistic hope. I think it's far more likely to be used on a small or very small scale.
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No. The real question is "Does it need to stay under high pressure to remain a superconductor?" Another post reports that, from the abstract, it does. Not quite as high as is required to make it, but sufficiently high that it would need to be kept between diamond anvils.
Re: Two questrions? (Score:2)
Re: No magnetism (Score:1)
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If I have a stream of charged particles flowing through a vacuum they generate a magnetic field. The standard model would be in tatters if charged particles flowing through a superconductor didn't generate a magnetic field. As it is not in tatters the poster is talking out his backside.
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"suppose we have an oscillation OSC1 along axis Y between two massless sizeless particles."
Electric Universe Nutter detected. No, I will not "suppose" that.
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You forgot to phrase it as "SUPPOSE you connect the Zambobulator...". That is the trick: you start with a supposition.
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Oh look an "Electric Universe" nutter. You can always tell by things like:
"So, for example, suppose that the underlying force propagates at infinity,"
Why, would you "suppose" that? So, for example, suppose that animals can fly. Thus we know that pigs can fly. Ergo, flying pigs.
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Electrons are composed of quarks. Quarks are elementary particles. Electrons are not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
How practical is 2 million atmospheres to sustain? (Score:2)
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Well, Lanthanum Hydride simply doesn't exist at atmospheric pressures on Earth. Minimum stable pressure for the material is around 11GPa.
Chemistry failure that you are, go back to school. SMHTBHFAM.
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So all we have to do is bury an international electric grid hundreds of miles below the earth.
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To give you some extra info, a Mech. E. just calculated for me that a cylinder of diamond with wall thickness 10cm can maintain that pressure in a 1cm diameter interior (with no safety tolerances). Diamond is very brittle, so you'd need a lot of engineering and possibly materials science research for this to ever be practically feasible. I'd guess that even my children won't see this being used in their lifetime.
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Very very very impractical.
That said, the existence of a room temperature superconductor at any pressure is extremely exciting because it might indicate ways to achieve practical room temperature superconductors which would have a wide range of extremely valuable applications.
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But here is the good thing, it's been found out.
Just like the microwave oven. Took something like
20 years before it really started to take off as a legit
home product ( 1968 it cost 400ish and new car was 2500 ish )
now it's $68 bucks and 25,000 for a new car
Wow, -70C (Score:2)
That is wild! Although, I prefer the term 'near-Antarctic-temperature' superconductivity.
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I missed that! That's a warm winter day [chicagotribune.com] in Chicago!
Simple ... (Score:2)
Can't wait to rig that up in my home. /sarcasm
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Wait a second -- diamonds, high pressure, superconductivity, "gasket", ... I know what I'm proposing with.
Wake me up when Superconducting at STP (Score:2)
Standard Temperature (0C) & Pressure (101.3kPa).
Otherwise, these experiments are only interesting to people in the field.
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Near-STP would do. If the superconductor requires a few atmospheres of pressure or cooling to a little below zero Celsius, it's quite practical: Just run your superconducting wire inside an insulated pipe and pump chilled water with a little antifreeze through it.
This is still not a superconductor suitable for practical use. But it shows that progress is being made. That there is hope that, one day, a new material will be discovered that is truly practical. That would be truly revolutionary.
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You know there are already superconductors being used for electrical transmission, right? Look at New York state [slashdot.org].
But no, you're not going to find multiple GPa materials running through a building practical at all.
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Standard Temperature (0C) & Pressure (101.3kPa).
Otherwise, these experiments are only interesting to people in the field.
No, we're going to let you sleep through the new era of room temperature superconductivity because you sound like a disgusting arrogant nerd.
We're also going to draw cocks on your face with permanent marker while you're snoozing. When you wake up, everyone will call you "Dick Face" and you won't know why.
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That's a stronger requirement than is needed. The temperature would be fine for many purposes. It's the pressure required that makes this only a lab curiosity (and possible pointer to stuff beyond).
But anything that would work at the temperature of dry ice wouldn't have a problem with being insulated in many uses. (Liquid Nitrogen would probably still be the coolant of choice, because it's easier to handle than Liquid CO2 [which requires special pressures], but being a lot cooler than is needed would hel
Paper rules (Score:1)
New Paper Confirms
In Soviet Union you were nothing without a paper too.
-70? bleh! (Score:1)
Superconductivity is a material phase (Score:2)
Superconductive materials can be considered a phase, so like water, if you increase the pressure, it increases the temperature it turns to ice. In many situations this applies to superconductors as well, so this isn't necessarily an unexpected effect. There are other factors, but this finding isn't very helpful UNLESS it also demonstrates a new family of superconducting materials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_superconductor). New types of superconductors may help add to the understanding
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I think it clearly *WAS* expected. You don't make something like that by accident. They must have predicted the result ahead of time and went to check out their theory. Then the details started being filled in...like after you make it you can raise the temperature a bit, but not too much. (I think -20 C was reported to be superconductive.) And you can ease the pressure a little, but not too much. (I forget how much, but it was still quite impressive.)
A cheaper version (Score:2)
If they used gold pressed lanthanum instead of diamond pressed, they could trade it to the Ferengi once it lost its superconductivity.
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And every purveyor of Monster Cables, too, I'm sure.