Scientists at the University of Rochester claim to have created a material that acts as a superconductor at room temperature and at unprecedentedly low pressures. If confirmed, this so-called “reddmatter” could represent a major breakthrough.
Even if the material is a good conductor of electricity, some resistance will occur that affects efficiency. In superconductors, however, electrons can flow freely with zero resistance, which could theoretically offer great advantages for energy grids, electric vehicles, quantum computers, and even high-speed maglev trains.
But, of course, there are pitfalls. Superconductivity works only at temperatures close to absolute zero, so it cannot be widely used in the real world. In recent years, scientists have discovered that some materials can act as superconductors at high temperatures, but only under very high pressures. This brings its own challenges to scaling up the technology.
In a new study, Rochester scientists claim to have created a material that acts as a superconductor at room temperature and relatively low pressures. The material is nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride (NDLH), and at pressures of 145,000 psi he exhibits superconductivity at moderate temperatures of 20.9°C (69.5°F). The latter number may sound high, but it is about two orders of magnitude lower than required in other experiments and well within the range used by some manufacturing techniques.
The team started with the element lutetium, which combines with hydrogen to form hydrides, giving the material properties that make it a promising candidate for room-temperature superconductivity. We then doped it with nitrogen to make it more stable and allow it to operate at lower pressures.
It is initially lustrous blue, but when compressed with a diamond anvil, it turns pink when it becomes superconducting, and finally bright red when it goes beyond superconductivity to a metallic state. Because of this, the team started jokingly calling it reddmatter. Star Trek.
Room-temperature superconductivity is a major scientific breakthrough and advances such as efficient power grids that can transmit power without loss, fast and energy-efficient floating trains, and faster, smaller and more efficient computers and medical imaging technology. make it possible. It could even be the key to a tokamak reactor that destroys fusion energy.
But before you get carried away, it’s worth remembering that this research still needs a lot of work. After all, this same team made a bold claim about room-temperature superconductivity in 2020. was later retracted by Nature after other scientists expressed concern about the data processing techniques used.
To the team’s credit, the data on the new study were collected while an independent scientist was looking, and the original paper was also resubmitted with the new data. Future work will investigate superconductivity in materials. to better understand its features and usage.
The study was published in a journal Natureand the team explain the work in the video below.
Reddmatter: The future of superconductivity
Source: University of Rochester
