EETimes.com wrote:
Silicon compound superconducts at room temperature
R. Colin Johnson
EE Times
(03/17/2008 5:35 PM EDT)
PORTLAND, Ore. — A new superconducting material fabricated by a Canadian-German team has been fabricated out of a silicon-hydrogen compound and does not require cooling.
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.
"If you put hydrogen compounds under enough pressure, you can get superconductivity," said professor John Tse of the University of Saskatchewan. "These new superconductors can be operated at higher temperatures, perhaps without a refrigerant."
He performed the theoretical work with doctoral candidate Yansun Yao. The experimental confirmation was performed by researcher Mikhail Eremets at the Max Plank Institute in Germany.
The new family of superconductors are based on a hydrogen compound called "silane," which is the silicon analog of methane--combining a single silicon atom with four hydrogen atoms to form a molecular hydride. (Methane is a single carbon atom with four hydrogens).
Researchers have speculated for years that hydrogen under enough pressure would superconduct at room temperature, but have been unable to achieve the necessary conditions (hydrogen is the most difficult element to compress). The Canadian and German researchers attributed their success to adding hydrogen to a compound with silicon that reduced the amount of compression needed to achieve superconductivity.
Tse's team is currently using the Canadian Light Source synchrotron to characterize the high pressure structures of silane and other hydrides as potential superconducting materials for industrial applications as well as a storage mechanism for hydrogen fuel cells.
The research was funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Max Plank Institute.
Of course, this only requires high pressure to work. Silane also explodes... rather violently... on contact with oxygen, prompting one Slashdot reader to quip the following:
pushing-robot wrote:
Cool, I get to mark two things off my Star Trek checklist in a single day:
* Room-temperature superconductors
* Computers that explode violently
Jesus H Christ, you mean to tell me they have actually invented something that would react like 'plasma conduits'
Ay yi yi
"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."
Burak Gazan wrote:Jesus H Christ, you mean to tell me they have actually invented something that would react like 'plasma conduits'
Ay yi yi
Full speed ahead! Lets invest millions and switch the next US ships and airplanes over to this will all haste!
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
It does make some sense from a point of view. With the electrons being able to flow nearly without resistance, there's plenty of kinetic energy going around. Some of the heat has to go somewhere.
STGOD: Byzantine Empire Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you.
Kreia
TANSTAAFL. He you want super efficient circuits or high density power storage, you take the risks too. Maybe we can get electron grenades like the power cells used in Peter F. Hamilton's works.
I think room temperature superconductivity here still refers to compatible phase transition at >40 K, not 300 K. All the experimental reporting I've seen in the past two years indicat the opaque phase transition for the metallic hydrides at >100 GPa is just starting at 300 K. And while I haven't read the latest paper, Tse did publish a predicted critical temperature of between 45 and 55 K for silane as late as last year. Still, pretty cool stuff.
His Divine Shadow wrote:So, can this technology be aplied for automobile transportation purposes and electricity storage?
As it stands now, if you can cost-effectively use superconducting metallic silane in your car, you have a pump which can assist in cheaply making diamonds.
Paolo wrote:I think room temperature superconductivity here still refers to compatible phase transition at >40 K, not 300 K. All the experimental reporting I've seen in the past two years indicat the opaque phase transition for the metallic hydrides at >100 GPa is just starting at 300 K. And while I haven't read the latest paper, Tse did publish a predicted critical temperature of between 45 and 55 K for silane as late as last year. Still, pretty cool stuff.
God damn it, room temperature should only be used to mean room temperature! 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or whatever that translates to in Kelvins.
This is cool news, but I'm still hoping we'll find one that we can just use as a wire, without need of super-cooling OR giant pressure pumps.
For those of you with access to Science, you can read the original paper. As for room-temperature superconductivity, the EETimes article has been updated to indicate that it may be possible - not that it has been tested.
For those without access to journals for free, ArsTechnica has a good summary.
