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Man-Made Material Pushes the Bounds of Superconductivity

Posted by samzenpus on from the greased-lightning dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A multi-university team of researchers has artificially engineered a unique multilayer material that could lead to breakthroughs in both superconductivity research and in real-world applications. The researchers can tailor the material, which seamlessly alternates between metal and oxide layers, to achieve extraordinary superconducting properties — in particular, the ability to transport much more electrical current than non-engineered materials."

7 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Resistance by colinrichardday · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shall we call this material Borgium? Resistance is useless!

    1. Re:Resistance by sconeu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, you're right. Borgium would have futile resistance.

      We are Ohm of Borg. Resistance is Voltage divided by Current.
      We are Coulomb of Borg. Resistance is futile. Voltage, on the other hand, has potential.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  2. Resistance and temperature by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The question -- as it always is -- is: What is the operating temperature range for this material? Because if it's still "refrigerate or die", applications will not expand much beyond where they are today.

    If we get superconductors we can use as power transmission lines in normal environmental temperature ranges, that'll be a serious game-changer.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Resistance and temperature by i.am.delf · · Score: 5, Informative

      The application I can see is stronger magnets. Right now the superconducting magnets we have are limited by the amount of current they can carry before they start misbehaving. The crappy part is that while we have superconductors which work at liquid nitrogen temperatures, they can't carry a whole lot of current. This leads to MRIs and NMRs using liquid helium cooled magnets which cost a ton of money to maintain. If this material can operate at LN2 temperatures and give the current density of the liquid helium magnets, they will have an amazing product on their hands.

    2. Re:Resistance and temperature by Guppy · · Score: 5, Informative

      The question -- as it always is -- is: What is the operating temperature range for this material? Because if it's still "refrigerate or die", applications will not expand much beyond where they are today.

      I don't have a subscription to Nature Materials, but squinting at the thumbnail graphs available for free, looks like the transition temperature is somewhere around 17-24 Kelvin. As far as I can tell, main advance here is in improving Critical Current Density and Irreversibility Field limits.

      Also, tag for story summary: whereisthefuckingpaper

    3. Re:Resistance and temperature by plover · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Power transmission is the easy one to see a payoff for, though. I've seen various sources claiming power line losses run anywhere from 7% to 17%. Also consider the energy we use shipping trains full of coal from the mines across the country to the generating plants located near the consumers. Superconductive lines could enable them to build power plants near the mines and push the current over the grid.

      Even if the tech was expensive to install on a per mile basis, if they could swap out the existing lines for superconducting lines, they wouldn't have to sign new land leasing deals for extra towers. Superconductors would enable them to shove 10X or 100X the power over the grid without having drastic changes elsewhere.

      That's one of the biggest limiting factors to wind generation today, by the way. The grid across the sparsely populated windy plains was originally designed to carry just a few tens of megawatts into a region that doesn't have large industrial plants and doesn't see a high demand. It was never designed to carry gigawatts of power out of the area. New windmills are actually straining the existing grid. An efficient distribution network would let those prairie windmills sell power all the way out to the coasts.

      --
      John
    4. Re:Resistance and temperature by PerMolestiasEruditio · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There are quite a few other relatively cheap options below 77K. In particular using vacuum to lower the temperature of liquid Nitrogen is pretty easy and gets you to 64K with the nitrogen still a liquid. Same trick with liquid Oxygen (also dirt cheap) gets you to 55K and liquid Neon is about 25K (and when we run out of easily mineable Helium it will be cheaper than helium). Liquid Hydrogen can be used at down to 14K using evacuation (20K at atmospheric pressure).