Scientists Create Room Temperature Superconductor

StarEmperor writes "A team of Canadian and German scientists have fabricated a room-temperature superconductor, using a highly compressed silicon-hydrogen compound. According to the article,"The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature.""

Comments

Umm...

[linuxboredom]

So, how exactly is this a good alternative to colder superconductors? Pressure is often more expensive to safely maintain. Not to mention the fact that SiH4 autoignites at room temperature.

Re:Room-pressure?

[Zymergy]

NOPE. Do not pass Go Do not collect $200.

"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."

This is NOT room temperature superconductivity!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm holding TFA (Science, 14 March 2008, pp. 1506-1509). The highest critical temperatures they observed, regardless of pressure, were around 17 Kelvin (between 96-120 GPa). These are interesting results because they are among the few measurements available to shed light on the behavior of dense hydrides at these pressures, and these materials might, if better understood, one day allow a room temperature superconductor to be made. This, however, is not it.

Re:This is NOT room temperature superconductivity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for looking up the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.1153282). The EETimes reporter seems to be terribly confused.
The money quote from the paper:

On cooling, a typical metallic behavior of the resistance was observed and eventually becoming superconducting (SC) at Tc {approx} 7 K (Fig. 2B). Upon further compression, the sample became completely opaque at 76 GPa, and Tc increased, with pressure up to 17.5 K at 96 GPa and 17 K at 120 GPa (Fig. 2C). At higher pressures, Tc decreases to 8.8 K at 165 GPa and is then likely to increase again to 11.3 K at 192 GPa (Fig. 2C). The behavior of Tc between 90 GPa and 120 GPa is suggestive that higher values of critical temperature of superconductivity may be possible. However, uncontrollable change of pressure during sample loading (20) prohibited us from studying this regime in detail.

Re:Applications?

[Goaway]

Actually, it is quite hard to cool things in space, if they generate any kind of heat. You can only radiate heat away - conduction and convection won't help you.

Re:Room-pressure?

[Gewalt]

Cold is not a thing, it is the absence of something (heat). Heat, on the other hand, exists, and enters from all directions.

Heat is not a thing. Thermal Energy, on the other hand, exists, and dissipates in all directions. (Heat is defined as the dissipation of thermal energy)

There is both more and less than meets the eye

[randolph]

The more is that the researchers have shown that silane turns into a metal at very high pressures; while researchers have not managed to create metallic hydrogen, they have managed this. The less is that it's only a 17-degree Kelvin superconductor--not an extraordinary temperature--and the pressures involved are on the order of half a million atmospheres.

The original article was published in Science on 14 March 2008; Vol. 319. no. 5869, pp. 1506 - 1509; DOI: 10.1126/science.1153282. Your local library can probably get you a copy; if you are at a university you may be able to access the online version.