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Surprising Superconduction in Plutonium

Posted by michael on from the million-and-one-uses dept.

jihema writes "Dr Strangelove would have liked this : a plutonium compound turns out to be a superconductor at relatively high temperature (18 K). The magnetic properties of this metal make this fact rather unexpected and contradicts the accepted theory on superconduction."

2 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Pb--Great by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Superconducting power lines would transmit electricity from power plants to homes without most of the energy loss that occurs now

    Unless someone takes them down to build an atomic bomb!

  2. Type I vs. Type II Superconductor by DrLudicrous · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am by far no expert in superconductivity, but I have worked with superconductive materials here and there. This discovery seems very similar to that of MgB2, which superconducts at about twice the temp, 37K or so. If I remember correctly, wasn't that a type-I superconductor? It seems to me that this plutonium-based superconductor (is it just pure Pu?) would be a classical BCS type-I superconductor. Most type-II's tend to be really complex as far as their constiutent elements numbers and ratios, e.g. YBCO. Plus, 18K is well below 37K, so in the regime of classical type-I Tc's. Also, I think that the cooper pairs are probably being formed by the valence f-orbital electrons. Maybe a theorist can show that this yields the lowest possible ground state energy. Besides, Yb of YBCO fame is also in the same group of elements as Pu who have partially filled f-orbitals.