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Possible Room Temperature Superconductor Achieved

Posted by kdawson on from the beware-of-puppeteer-breeding-experiments dept.

TechkNighT_1337 sends news that surfaced on the Next Big Future blog, concerning research out of the University of Bengal, in India. The report is of a possible superconducting effect at ambient room temperatures. Here is the paper on the ArXiv. (Note that this research has not been peer-reviewed or published yet.) "We report the observation of an exceptionally large room-temperature electrical conductivity in silver and aluminum layers deposited on a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate. The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K. The results are strongly suggestive of a superconductive interfacial layer, and have been interpreted in the framework of Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons as the suggested mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. ... The fact that the results described above have been obtained from very simply-fabricated systems, without the use of any sophisticated set-up and any special attention being given to crystal purity, atomic perfection, lattice matching, etc. suggests that the physical process is a universal one, involving only an interface between a metal and an insulator with a large low-frequency dielectric constant. We note in passing that PZT and the cuprates have similar (perovskite or perovskite-based) crystal structures. This resemblance may provide an added insight into the basic mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity."

5 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Of course! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    After reading the summary, everything is plainly obvious...

    (walks away slowly before anyone can notice I didn't understand anything)

  2. Re:Room Temperature in UK, maybe not in India? by JamesP · · Score: 5, Funny

    Reminds me of that joke about scientists in Anchorage discovering a room-temperature superconductor :P

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  3. Re:Someone didn't get the memo by thestudio_bob · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...not something made of silver.

    Well, apparently you don't have to deal with electricity stealing Werewolves. I for one, am glad someone is finally addressing this problem.

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  4. Re:Wait until it has been repeated. by vbraga · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe we could just redefine what room temperature is!

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  5. Re:Cold Fusion by Idarubicin · · Score: 5, Funny
    Ah. Well-renowned scientific co-worker endorses cold fusion. Inside scoop from globally-acclaimed Slashdot science critic hAckzOr.

    "It's real", hAckzor concludes.

    Film at eleven. Take that, scientific establishment.

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