Diamonds As Room-Temperature Superconductors

Stormalong writes "This article describes research into using diamonds as room-temperature superconductors. If successful, perhaps one day you could give your love a diamond engagement CPU instead of a ring!"

Comments

If true, will it be relevant?

[dtolton]

It sounds interesting, although it's hard to put too much weight
into it yet because their results have yet to be independently
verified. He also hasn't even shown it can "expel mangetic
fields to conclusivlely prove that the state is
superconducting."

At least the heading of the article was posted with a question
mark, rather than as an authoritative claim.

If the claim proves to be true, it would be interesting to see
what practical application it can be put to. Will the fact that
it could be a replacement for "hot" cathodes in TV tubes even be
relevant by the time this technology is ready for practical
application. With some of the other new technologies that are
on the horizon such as OLED's, it will be interesting to see
what the life span of the bulky CRT will be.

Re:If true, will it be relevant?

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

He also hasn't even shown it can "expel mangetic fields to conclusivlely prove that the state is superconducting"

I Am Not A Physicist, but this point makes me especially skeptical. Isn't this test (showing that a magnetic field is perfectly cancelled out within the semiconductor) relatively easy to conduct? Wouldn't the researcher have performed this test before making any claims?

The only thing I can figure is that the hardness and cost of diamond makes it difficult to get a specimen that has the correct topology for the test...

Diamonds as CPUs

[bujoojoo]

"CPUs are Forever" is not conducive to Moore's Law.

Re:Diamonds as CPUs

[pfankus]

Besides, "A Diamond is Forever" is a DeBeers marketing sloagan created in the 1920s, not some ancient piece of wisdom.

...which was featured in /. a little bit ago here. br>
The original article is quite a good read about the diamond industry and how *not pricy* actual diamonds really are. The true price seems to be paid in marketing, inflated costs, monopoly of the industry, and exploitation of indiginous people. Hell, you can make diamonds from the ashes of your dead greatgrandmother!

Re:Diamonds as CPUs

[4of12]

Besides, "A Diamond is Forever" is a DeBeers marketing sloagan created in the 1920s, not some ancient piece of wisdom.

DeBeers has recognized that it needs to market more effectively to the Slashdot crowd, many of whom have yet to make a substantial investment in a diamond.

Their new slogan will be

"Diamonds May be Thermodynamically Unfavorable at 1 atm and 300K, But Decay on a Time Scale Much Longer Than Your Marriage."

engagement

[frizz]

What better way to say "forever" than with a diamond? What better way to say "maybe 18 months" than with a cpu?

Thermal and Electrical Conductivity

[Michael.Forman]

High electrical conductivity and high thermal conductivity tend to run together. For instance copper has an electrical conductivity of 5.8x10^7 S/m and a thermal conductivity of 200 W/mK.

A notable exception is diamond with a low electrical conductivity on the order of 1 S/m and a high thermal conductivity of 700 W/mK.

Because of diamond's superior thermal conductivity and low electrical conductivity, it functions as an excellent material for use in a heat sink.

What interests me is, that by adding free electrons by doping the diamond with oxygen is he seeing actual superconductivity or just the high conductivity one would expect, if diamond had free electrons.

Michael.

Visit das Schlößl.

Re:Thermal and Electrical Conductivity

[Bender_]

High electrical conductivity and high thermal conductivity tend to run together. For instance copper has an electrical conductivity of 5.8x10^7 S/m and a thermal conductivity of 200 W/mK.

This is known as Wiedeman-Franz Law in Physics. It describes the relationship between eletron heat transfer and conductivity. However it is only valid for Metals. Heat transfer in semiconductors is dominated by lattice vibration transport. Due to the bandgap there is little phonon/electron interaction.

A notable exception is diamond with a low electrical conductivity on the order of 1 S/m and a high thermal conductivity of 700 W/mK.

Its not an exception, its a semiconductor with a large bandgap and behaves exactly as expected.

Re:prices would SOAR!

[k-0s]

No thanks, I'll stick with AMD and cubic zirconias.

big whup. you still can't make wires

[js7a]

Firstly, I read about this in sci.physics.* or some metafilter rss some days ago. It's still very theoretical that any kind of large mass production is even possible, let alone practical.

Even if it turns out to be practical, there is still the problem faced by the ceramic superconductors: even if you can get them to ambient temperatures, they still are brittle, rigid, and unmalleable and therefore totally unlike wires. The best you could hope for is to lay these things end-to-end in a trench by the side of the road, and the first earthquake or vibrational disturbance that comes along is going to snap, crack, and pop the circuit open. Unlike wires and fiber optics, which at least stand a chance of anything short of a backhoe.

Ordinary wind power is of far more practical importance than superconductors, fusion, fuel cells, and solar energy combined. However, Slashdot editors regularly pick those topics for the front page. In the rare event that /. does something on wind power, it's always in the non-front-page "Science" section. Come on, "stuff that matters" should actually matter. Did you know that the entire U.S. electrical grid could be powered by less than 150,000 modern wind turbines?

Re:big whup. you still can't make wires

[TechnoWeenie]

Did you know that the entire U.S. electrical grid could be powered by less than 150,000 modern wind turbines?

I did not know this, so I did some quick googling and found some interesting numbers. According to the DOE the total U.S. generation of electricity for 1999 was 3691 billion kilowatt hours.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epav1/i ntro.html#tab1

According to the Danish Windpower Industry Association, a modern wind turbine will generate about 2 to 3 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.
http://www.windpower.org/faqs.htm#anchor727849

If these numbers (and my math) is right, your conclusion is off by about an order of magnitude

What slashdotters would demand...

[GQuon]

would be that they are "free as in deBeers".

Re:Engagement?

[red_dragon]

You forget that most /.'ers associate "engagement" with a Counterstrike session ...

And with good reason. Did you actually believe that marriage was any different? ;)

Re:Diamond prices

[tybalt44]

Remember, the next time you buy a diamond for your sweetie, slave (and probably child) labor, blood, sweat and tears literally goes into each one. Ahh...nothing says love like the suffering of your fellow man. If this concerns you, then you should probably buy Canadian Arctic Diamonds which are exploitation- and conflict-free.

Can I Give her Diamond Token Ring?

[multi-flavor-geek]

They are all Token Rings any way, but hopefully I can get meaningful 2 way communication next time, and not just a bunch of lost packets and wasted resources.