Slashdot Mirror
Single-Atom Layer of Tin May Be a New Wonder Conductor
At Kurzweil AI, an article proclaims that the next wonder material for computer chips may be an unexpectedly common one:
"Move over, graphene. 'Stanene' — a single layer of tin atoms — could be the world’s first material to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at the temperatures that computer chips operate, according to a team of theoretical physicists led by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University." (Original paper is available here, but paywalled.)
After reading your post, I was quite sure there were no spelling errors. I trusted that there are none, but I verified it to be sure. What's exactly contradictory there?
Since it is not logically possible to be always correct, once in a while something you trust will actually turn out wrong. As this is the case, it is very beneficial to verify things once in a while even if you trust them.
What is the maximum current that can be transported through strips of various widths?
Other questions:
1. If a sheet of 1 atom thickness can transport x A/m at no loss, (ampere per meter of sheet), then how close can you stack these sheets together before x becomes significantly less?
2. If there is a (mutual) magnetic interference between two layers that destroys the superconducting effect, then will the superconductor actually work when immersed in an external magnetic field?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
No. Superconductors of any critical temperature don't imply infinite power storage. They need to be cooled more and more as they are subjected to larger and larger magnetic fields (generated by the circulating current that they contain). The nominal critical temperature is for when they store zero current. Even if you could keep a superconductor at exactly zero degrees, it would still only store a finite amount of energy.
Anyway, this isn't about superconductors; its a totally different phenomena called the quantum hall effect. This has been around since the 80s; they're just claiming to have found a material that (according to their models) has a large regime of zero-resistance operation. The problem with using the QHO for practical purposes is that it requires a crazily strong external magnetic field (~1T).