
The Quest for Room-Temperature Superconductors - eaguyhn
https://gizmodo.com/the-quest-for-the-most-elusive-material-in-physics-1833846121
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klimt
> one of the researchers carefully sandwiches lanthanum foil and hydrogen gas
> in between the diamonds’ flat surfaces. Then [...] the researcher generates
> pressures of at least 170 GPa—pressures similar to those in the Earth’s
> core—between the diamond tips. Then [...] the team heat the material with
> laser pulses, producing the chemical reaction that would create the
> material.

It is always humbling to read about what it takes to do cutting edge research.
This article was good at conveying the efforts required.

I do wonder if studying these simple hydrogen-based compounds is a dead end
though. I believe the same mechanism (phonon-electron coupling) is at work
here, than in conventional superconductors, so the physics is well-understood.
It's been established that this mechanism can only support superconductivity
up to 30-40 K at normal pressures [1]. Unconventional superconductors, on the
other hand, don't have this hard limit, so there is probably more knowledge to
be gained from studying those, which could be used to propose new, better
superconductors.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_theory)

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IsTom
Stress on surface of tempered glass in in range of 100 MPa. It's a lot less
than the 170 GMa in this case, but perhaps it could get a bit higher in a
similar material and the threshold of superconductivity could be lowered.

------
brohee
“Someone else has to prove it independently, otherwise it’s invalid,”

Take notes, psychology.

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hliyan
> zero resistance in the material at temperatures higher than 8 Fahrenheit
> (-13 Celsius), perhaps as high as 44 Fahrenheit (7 Celsius)

> The teams synthesized only about a dust-speck worth of [lanthanum hydride]
> from expensive ingredients crushed to unfathomable pressures between hand-
> cranked diamond halves

While the temperatures are amazing (when I was young, superconductivity above
0 Celsius was the stuff of science fiction), the material might not have
commercial applications in the near future.

Instead, why not use active cooling and powerful insulation? Like this:
[https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/world-first-as-wind-
turb...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/world-first-as-wind-turbine-
upgraded-with-high-temperature-superconductor/3009780.article)

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blamarvt
I feel like the article is misleading insofar as to omit the material has to
_also_ be under extreme pressure to remain a superconductor.

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jccalhoun
I remember when I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s there was all this talk
about room-temperature superconductors being right around the corner. Getting
to 8 degrees F is a big advance even if it is only tiny amounts.

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auto
My high school physics teacher (~2006) told us once when discussing career
prospects that if you could build/discover a material that was a
superconductor at room temperature, you'd probably end up the richest person
in the world.

I've never forgotten that, and it sounds like the challenge still stands.

~~~
LeonM
I always said that one of these things would probably make you one of the
richest (or powerful) persons on the planet:

    
    
      - Practical nuclear fusion (that outputs more power that it takes to run)
      - Superconductivity at room temperature
      - Artificial general intelligence
      - Practical high-density energy storage

~~~
tomatotomato37
My vote is on industrial-scaled asteroid mining. The ability to both drop
near-unlimited riches into coffers of the people you like and onto the cities
of the people you don't like would seem to be the be all end all combo

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LeonM
I highly doubt asteroid mining would ever be profitable. The cost of getting
bulk goods from space down to earth are astronomical (ha!).

Also, if you were to flood the market with any material you mined, prices
would go down.

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ah27182
What are super conductors used for? I say this as Im fairly certain we arent
solely looking for a more efficient way to transfer electricity.

~~~
mlevental
well you're not wrong but a room tc superconductor would indeed enable us to
cut down on transmission costs of power. I'm not sure if this is obvious but
the only reason national powergrids are AC and not DC is because you can step
down AC current and therefore have much lower heat dissipation through the
transmission lines. So at the minimum you'd get cheaper power by eliminating
all the resistive losses and stepper circuits . But also superconductors are
used in MRI machines where right now they're kept below Tc using liquid
nitrogen, which is hard to control (search MRI quenching). So room temp
superconductors would make MRIs cheaper, which would be a boon to the
developing world.

~~~
wl
A superconductor suitable for use in an electromagnet that could be cooled
with liquid nitrogen alone would be practically "room temperature" as far as
these things go. Liquid nitrogen is cheap and abundant, as opposed to liquid
helium which is required to get down to 4 K.

As stands at the moment, some older MRIs use liquid nitrogen to help insulate
liquid helium. Newer machines use liquid helium alone.

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mrfusion
Doesn’t rebco tape use liquid nitrogen?

~~~
wl
It's been awhile since I've paid attention to the field, so apologies if I get
this wrong. I was under the impression that cuprate superconductors were
unsuitable for use in MRI magnets because they only superconduct across
clusters of microdomains, making it impossible (at least with current
technology) to generate the large, strong, and uniform field necessary for the
application.

There seems to be ongoing research into producing suitable magnets with
cuprates, but I don't know if the problem has been solved yet. In any case,
there are no commercially available MRI machines that use cuprate
superconductors.

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Jesus_Jones
Ever read Larry Niven's "Ringworld"? Don't forget that the Puppeteers
destroyed the Ringworld's technological civilization by creating a substance
that destroyed their superconductors. If we ever invent them it will be
fantastic, but it will also be a central vulnerability to our civilization -
but I guess we have other ones already.

