
A material found to carry current in a way never before observed - neo4sure
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-material-unique-behavior-current.html
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excalibur
> Scientists at the Florida State University-headquartered National High
> Magnetic Field Laboratory have discovered a behavior in materials called
> cuprates that suggests they carry current in a way entirely different from
> conventional metals such as copper.

> The research, published today in the journal _Science_ , adds new meaning to
> the materials' moniker, "strange metals."

> Although scientists understand the physics of LTS, they haven't yet cracked
> the nut of HTS materials. Exactly how the electrons travel through these
> materials remains the biggest mystery in the field.

The biggest mystery in the field... of science?

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a1369209993
> The biggest mystery in the field... of science?

The biggest mystery in the magnetic field at their laboratory. /s

They probably meant something like the field of HTS material physics.

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ChuckMcM
For reasons of my own, I think this will turn out to be a pretty important
clue as to the nature of super conductivity. Something I wonder is if
resistivity would go down in response to a high electric field.

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tinco
If you already know what's going on, then please let us know already. For
reasons of my own I think the nature of super conductivity is going to be an
important part of future technological developments!

~~~
ChuckMcM
Heh, if _knew_ what was going on I would be building some Tony Stark level
gadgets already :-), but what I have been observing are the number of papers
being produced around new observations or interpretations of the interaction
between the electromagnetic forces and quantum effects.

I have also observed over the years that, like debugging complex problems,
once experimental physicists can repeat an effect that is not well understood,
the underlying physics is more likely to be revealed.

I wrote Dr. Shekhter and he said an updated paper would be available on Arxiv
shortly.(arxiv:1705.05806) so I'm looking for that.

"High" temperature superconductors have been interesting for a while. My
thought is that if there is a way to understand this current conductivity
using quantum electrodynamics it could open a way to understanding how to
create super conductors that operate at room temperature.

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peter_d_sherman
Excerpt:

"The fact that the linear-in-field resistivity mirrored so elegantly the
previously known linear-in-temperature resistivity of LSCO is highly
significant, Shekhter said.

"Usually when you see such things, that means that it's a very simple
principle behind it," he said.

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rqwrqe
So what applications this will have ?

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m-p-3
It this leads to room temperature superconductivity, it could allow MRI
scanners to operate without the need of expensive helium-based coolant system.
And this could also mean that if they can use it in PCB, you could have a CPU
that doesn't release heat.

The implication of heatless CPUs and less need for cooling would have a
tremendous impact in datacenters.

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daveguy
As far as I can tell room temp SC would be more beneficial to power
transmission than anything. The energy could be zipped along from wherever it
is generated most efficiently with little loss.

Successful room temp SC wouldn't be able to produce _heatless_ CPUs because
the transistor mechanism has to work by essentially a changing resistance
level. So the billions of transistors themselves would still give off heat,
but not the wires connecting them. I'm not sure what percentage heat comes
from the transistors vs conduits between those transistors. Significant boost
in efficiency / reduction in heat, but not _heatless_.

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ericpauley
In general the power consumption is in the transistors, and related more
directly to junction capacitance, voltage, and frequency than to resistance.

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tshanmu
No observations here, still ;-)

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captain_perl
> discovered a behavior in materials called cuprates that suggests they carry
> current in a way entirely different from conventional metals such as copper.

Well, cuprates are copper-based molecules, so a better wording would be "they
carry current in a way entirely different from metallic copper or other
metals."

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ahakki
No, that would be as if I said Water is less flammable than Hydrogen and you
had replied: "But Water is just Oxygenated Hydrogen!!"

~~~
captain_perl
No, you're missing a level of subtlety. The author made it sound like there
was no relationship between cuprates and copper, but in fact cuprate molecules
include copper atoms. In fact, cuprates are a new family of superconductors
because of their copper content.

Your metaphor doesn't add any information, since water is less flammable than
hydrogen.

