
Insulator or superconductor? Physicists find graphene is both - chmaynard
http://news.mit.edu/2018/graphene-insulator-superconductor-0305
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Armisael16
For those who are curious: the Tc is stated as up to 1.7K in the abstract of
the Nature preprint
([https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26160](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26160)).
This isn’t a high-temperature superconductor.

It’s still very interesting though (as things in Nature usually are). I’m a
little surprised no one had looked at electrical conductivity with misaligned
vdW epitaxy - it seems like the an obvious thing to look at to me. They’re
still using micro mechanical cleavage (ie, peel it off with tape) - maybe it
was a cleanliness or size issue? Maybe it’s just easy hindsight.

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rbranson
I've been hearing about the magic of Graphene for over a decade now. How close
are we to actually getting this stuff into mass-produced goods?

~~~
godelski
The hard thing is making large sheets and single layer. Multi-layer and small
sheets is pretty easy. Too many sheets, and you have graphite though. But
those small chunks have some useful properties (same with CNTs, which you can
make with a detonation). Also, realize that they don't have 0 resistance
(which is a superconductor), read as "it creates heat". This limits the amount
of current that you can drive through it. So there's still a lot of problems
that need to be solved. But there are definitely huge interests in also
looking at using it for filtering molecules. But this is also difficult to do
with precision. And that's the root of the problem, precision and consistency.
I know that doesn't exactly answer your question, but all I can say is that it
feels like we are close.

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ben_w
Super-transistor. This may have significant implications outside computing,
perhaps a switchable Casimir cavity (how do superconductors respond to non-DC
currents?)

I didn’t see a critical temperature for this in the article, only “100K” for
related classes of material. Anyone know the Tc of this?

~~~
emiliobumachar
Super-transistor? I hate to stomp on innovation, but, mechanically rotating
parts of a transistor to switch it would seem like a large step backwards
relative to the electrically-switchable status quo.

~~~
skykooler
It's switched by a gate voltage.

> The researchers continued to measure the electrical resistance of the
> material, and found that when they added a certain, small amount of
> electrons, the electrical current flowed without dissipating energy — just
> like a superconductor.

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olympus
Oh, look. Another great thing that graphene can do.

I'm starting to think that I'll see genetically engineered pro athletes before
I get to see graphene powered gadgets. And probably I'll see true human level
AI before mass market graphene as well.

~~~
lern_too_spel
You have already seen genetically engineered pro athletes.
[https://www.smh.com.au/news/basketball/yao-ming-the-
basketba...](https://www.smh.com.au/news/basketball/yao-ming-the-basketball-
giant-made-in-china-by-order-of-the-state/2006/01/18/1137553645228.html)

~~~
grzm
The article you provided mentions that his parents were encouraged to marry.

> _The two were encouraged to marry in a system with undertones of eugenics,
> the controversial gene-pool manipulation espoused by the Nazis and
> previously trumpeted by Beijing._

> _It wasn 't a national breeding program, it was a desire among Shanghai
> officials for them to get together," Larmer said. "But when Yao was born,
> everybody in the sports community in Shanghai and nationally knew he was
> something special."_

While I agree that's unsavory, that's not what most would consider
"genetically engineered."

~~~
olympus
Yeah, I meant something along the lines of using CRISPR or a future derivative
to make a person genetically predisposed to having the fastest mind, most
durable body, and best hand-eye coordination.

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52-6F-62
I'm sure I'm getting way ahead of the practical side here, but am I
understanding it right that this works at room/atmospheric temperatures?

Does this move the needle closer to being able to make the Meissner effect
applicable in practical engineering?

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

~~~
aidenn0
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16523268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16523268)
links to the Nature abstract showing it's critical temperature is under 2
kelvin, so that's low even for cryogenic superconductors.

It's interesting because it's very high temperature given certain properties
of the material; if that is confirmed, it may allow greater understanding of
superconductivity, which may allow other materials to work at higher
temperatures.

~~~
52-6F-62
Damn! But any movement is promising. Thanks

