Future of Engineering
Monday, March 24, 2008
Supercompressed Silicon, Hydrogen Superconducts at Room Temperature
A new superconducting material fabricated by a Canadian-German team has been fabricated out of a silicon-hydrogen compound [after supercompression, 96-120GPa] and does not require cooling. They had to keep the material under pressure (100GPa) in order to get it to superconduct.
The press release talked about not using refrigerant and EEtimes said room temperature superconductor. They believe that the new silane / hydrogen compounds could reach room temperature superconducting levels. The temperature at which superconductivity occurs exhibits some interesting behavior. It hangs around 5-10K for most of the pressure range (50-200GPa), but in a small range between 100-125GPa, it increases quite sharply. Although the researchers only have five data points in the range and never observed a critical temperature higher than 20K, the shape of the curve indicates that, for some small range of pressures, a very high critical temperature might be achieved. So they still have to investigate the critical pressure range and possibly other compounds and still get them to work after pressure is removed. The other unpressurized material which could be superconducting at 185K are closer to being possible improved application, but they need some more independent confirmations.
More from here
The press release talked about not using refrigerant and EEtimes said room temperature superconductor. They believe that the new silane / hydrogen compounds could reach room temperature superconducting levels. The temperature at which superconductivity occurs exhibits some interesting behavior. It hangs around 5-10K for most of the pressure range (50-200GPa), but in a small range between 100-125GPa, it increases quite sharply. Although the researchers only have five data points in the range and never observed a critical temperature higher than 20K, the shape of the curve indicates that, for some small range of pressures, a very high critical temperature might be achieved. So they still have to investigate the critical pressure range and possibly other compounds and still get them to work after pressure is removed. The other unpressurized material which could be superconducting at 185K are closer to being possible improved application, but they need some more independent confirmations.
More from here
Labels: Material-Sciences, Physics
PermaLink - Supercompressed Silicon, Hydrogen Superconducts at Room Temperature posted by Ecacofonix : 3:15 AM
