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High-temp Superconductors of Silver and Fluorine?

jeffredd writes: "Two researchers at Cornell are predicting high-temperature, nearly resistance free, superconducters made of an exotic combination of silver and fluorine. The main thrust of their theory seems to revolve around the fact that even though fluoroargentates have not been found to have superconducting properties, they are very similar to oxocuprates which set the high-temp record back in 1993. This is for the hard-core physics buffs. You can read the details here"

17 comments

  1. unstable by maddogsparky · · Score: 0
    The article makes reference to "walking in a mindfield", since all this is theoretical and non of these compounds have been made yet. It also says that the compounds will break down glass and cyramics and probably have to be encased in gold or something similar. The material is based on flourine and silver, so if it breaks down, you could potentially end up with loose florine (which is really reactive stuff!).

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    science is a religion
    1. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      How about the border that lies between a silver filling and a flouridated tooth? Or perhaps some of the oxides scraped from the surface of a silver filling. Flouride impregnated tooth enamel is dissolved in acids in the mouth. That same acid passes over silver filling corroding it as well. Any sort of compound containing silver and flouride possible in such an environment?

      I'd use my multimeter on a tooth to test this theory but holy shit that would hurt.

    2. Re:unstable by Yazeran · · Score: 2
      Well they do claim that the material has been synthesized, byt so far it has been too unstable to properly investigate. (mainly that you cannot make solids out of them as they disintegrate uppon heating, thus ecxluding sintering as a means of processing). Once they figure out a way to make larger pieces of this, we will know if it is superconducting.

      Yours Yazeran

      Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

  2. I wonder if my teeth are superconductive? by MarkusH · · Score: 1

    Silver Fluoride (the substance the article is talking about) is often used by dentists for fluoride treatments on weakened teeth.

    Maybe this explains why my teeth hurt when I eat something really cold. The silver fluoride makes the pain nerves superconduct.

  3. Re:In other news... by 3waygeek · · Score: 1

    15.75 kHz for NTSC.

  4. Re:In other news... by wd123 · · Score: 1

    Which begs the question: How did she dial the phone?

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    "question = (to) ? be : !be;" --Shakespeare
  5. Re:Post please by squeegee-me · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I also agree, but keep in mind that this artical does not show up on the fron page of /. The only reason I saw this is I have a habbit of clicking on "older stuff" so I can see all of the submissions that were approved.

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    Who wants Pork Chops?
  6. nearly resistance free, superconducters ???? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ...nearly resistance free, superconducters ...

    Aren't all superconductors "resistance-free" by definition? Duh!

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    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  7. In other news... by mgarraha · · Score: 4, Funny

    911 dispatchers in Anoka, Minnesota, received a call from a woman who said she was hanging from her ceiling by a punch bowl. Paramedics learned that she had been polishing the sterling silver bowl with a fluoride toothpaste. Physicists at the University of Minnesota speculate that a thin layer of superconducting material may have formed between the toothpaste and the silver, and that a nearby television set could have induced a magnetic field which caused the bowl to levitate.

    1. Re:In other news... by mgarraha · · Score: 1

      OK, you caught me. The TV's electromagnetic field also oscillates at several kHz.

  8. Re:Post please by SIGFPE · · Score: 2

    I have to agree. Nobody even bothers to check the titles of science stories - for example this one looks like its about conductors of fluorine and silver.

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    -- SIGFPE
  9. Silver Fluoride in Dental Use by Brainiac_3.14 · · Score: 1

    The silver fluoride a dentist uses is not the same kind of thing that would be a superconducter. As the article points out, these materials (a) have never been synthesized, and (b) are composed of silver, fluoride, and another element (such as potassium). Lol, it would be funny though if all of a sudden someone getting a silver fluoride dental treatment began to levitate because of some nearby magnetic field.

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    "I hate a Roman named Status Quo!" -- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
  10. Let's Wait And See by Self+Bias+Resistor · · Score: 2

    While the theory behind this new, high-level superconductor is very interesting there are two important isssues that should be sorted out before we can start celebrating this new discovery:

    • Firstly, it is only a theory. No actual tests involving this new compound have been performed yet, so for the moment it's merely a very educated guess.
    • Secondly, the flouroargentates contain Silver in unusually high oxidation states and so the material easily loses Flourine when heated. This becomes a problem as Flourine is the most oxidising of the elements and has the nastly tendancy to corrode glass and some other ceramics. Anyone who has worked with Hydroflouric Acid would agree with me here (HF not only burns your skin but has some other nasty side-effects such as drawing out Calcium from the bones). So containment is going to be a significant problem (and hence makes it very difficult to fashion Silver flouroargentate into wires that would transmit electricity, for example).

    So while this is very interesting news for the field of high-temperature superconductors (and also interesting for me as I am a high-school Physics student), my advice is to wait and see. Don't get your hopes up until the results from the practical experiments come out.

    It might also be useful to note that there is another compound that has a transition temperature similar to this one. It's a compound of Mercury (although I am unsure which, all constructive suggestions are welcome) and has a transition temperature of around 120K or so.

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    When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.

  11. Not silver fluoride - fluoroargentates. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 2

    Silver Fluoride (the substance the article is talking about) is often used by dentists for fluoride treatments on weakened teeth.

    Actually, no. The article talks about a very different type of silver compound.

    Silver fluoride has silver as the cation and fluorine as the anion.

    A fluoroargentate has something else as the cation (sodium and potassium were mentioned in the article), and AgFx as the anion (AgF3 and AgF4 were mentioned in the article). This is same style of compound as phosphates, nitrates, and so forth, but with an exotic, less stable anion.