Slashdot Mirror
Silicon Superconductors
Diana writes "Physicists at CNRS have demonstrated superconductivity in silicon, the element long known for its semiconducting properties. High doping is the key — by substituting 9% of the silicon atoms with boron atoms, it was found that the resistance of the material drops sharply when cooled below 0.35 K. A small increase in the transition temperature is likely with further work."
And just to make the article more clear: Let's substitute "boron" with Tom (hey, what guy wouldn't want more boron?), and "silicon" with Suzie (hey, what girl woudln't want more, eh, yeah.).
"Because it has one fewer electron than Suzie available for bonding with neighbouring atoms, Tom incorporated into Suzie leaves a positively-charged "hole" at each site where Tom's "missing" electron would be paired with one of Suzie's."
Well they did do it in France, you know.
One should not always relate things to 'applied' science. There is a predecessor called 'pure' science that acts as an enabler for rest of the world. Sure average Joe doesn't care but it is a significant improvement in the scientific world. Now many critical research can be performed on "silicon" (although at insanely low temperature). Remember the time when there were only few elements in the world that exhibited the property of superconducting? Now Silicon is yet another addition and considering how Silicon is closely related to computing, this could be a jump board for the speed-demanding future ahead.
Since when did science have to have applications?
(This isn't sarcasm; science is about discovery. Applications of those discoveries are mostly accident. You can't automatically "succeed" at science. Failing to find a room-temperature superconductor isn't failing per se; it means succeeding to eliminate another coulda been material. Finding dead ends is part of the quest. And this result might not yet be a dead end.)
So far, most of the comments have been posted by boring morons.
-A bored moron
It's just a process of discovery to advance science. If we didn't go through these scientific processes of discovery then we would still have people running around thinking that everything was controlled by some big booming voice in the sky. Oh wait...
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Yes, 0.35 K is really cold. Refridgeration methods that reach this temperature cost ~ $100,000 and use the helium-3 isotope as the working fluid, which costs several hundred dollars per gaseous liter at STP. But this may still be useful because there is lots of established technology for making very small things out of silicon, and lots of fundemental physics that can only be done at very small length scales and in very cold environments.
You forgot to put the link... http://www.twinkiesproject.com/