As you may remember, yesterday we did a quick post on a team of international researchers that were being reported as having found a material that could superconduct at room-temperature (which is more or less the holy-grail of superconductors). As i mentioned in that article, there seemed to be some discrepancies between what was being reported in some places (like nextenergynews, where i originally found the report), and the press-release from Dr.John Tse’s (the lead researcher) University.
Basically the press-release seemed to say that they had achieved superconductivity in a material that could potentially lead to superconductors at room-temp, while other sources were claiming outright that there had been an actual room-temp superconductor. To get to the bottom of it, i contacted Dr. Tse directly and here is what he’s told me.
He was apparently originally misquoted misinterpreted in EETimes (who have since corrected it), which then lead to the other misquotes and subsequent wrong reporting of a new superconductor at room-temperature.
Here is how Dr. Tse explained to me what they DID do in their research:
What they did was follow up on a suggestion made in 2004 by Prof. Ashcroft of Cornell, that suggested that if high enough density of hydrogen could be prepared in a solid, it might exhibit superconducting properties. He suggested using Hydrogen rich compounds, which is exactly what they did (Silane). They did indeed achieve this high density hydrogen state in silane, and subsequently detected superconductivity. The temperature they found it to superconduct at was actually 16K (around 280K would be room-temperature), at a pressure of 120 Giga-Pascal, and as Dr. Tse said, ” A good understanding of the mechanism may lead to the design of materials with even higher T_c”.
So there you have it! Not a room-temp superconducting material, but it may pave the way for it.
I don’t mean to be link-whoring here, but i would really appreciate a Digg/Reddit vote, which can be done at the top of this page, as both websites did report the misquotes as truth, and it would be nice to have it corrected.
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March 22nd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
For future reference: Trusting science news from a site with “Free Energy” in the header is not a good idea.
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
For future reference: Basing your trust on something because of a title or gut feeling is not a good idea either.
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
For future reference: Skepticism and fact checking are always a good idea.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:12 am
280K is more like a cold winter day. 300K is a convenient outside temperature on a warm day. There’s nothing special about the Kelvin system, it’s just Celsius + 273.15
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
Can we all stop, just stop, for the love of everything geek, great and divinely supercillous, stop yammering about what is -nog- possible and get us the hell into the next century with a new power source so that we can stop butchering people over a viscose substance in the ground? Well, thank you very fucking much!
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 am
Just for those who might not realize it — 120 gigapascals is roughly 1,200,000 atmospheres of pressure or, very roughly, 17,500,000 pounds per square inch. With a need for that much pressure, even if it was a room temperature process, it might not be all that practical!
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
That’s quite a wide misinterpretation.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:36 pm
“280K is more like a cold winter day. 300K is a convenient outside temperature on a warm day. There’s nothing special about the Kelvin system, it’s just Celsius + 273.15″
You’re right of course, in my defense i’m from Iceland where 280K would be a nice day.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I’m sure if someone managed Room Temp SuperConductors there would of been a bigger HooHarr about it.
The implications of such a discovery would be outstanding!
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
this discovery is impressive!
March 24th, 2008 at 1:47 am
what is the difference between supraconductors and superconductors ?
March 24th, 2008 at 2:08 am
“280K is more like a cold winter day. 300K is a convenient outside temperature on a warm day. There’s nothing special about the Kelvin system, it’s just Celsius + 273.15?
True, but 280K would still be an amazing discovery. The highest temperature superconductor I can think of conducts at 120K: quite far off!
Go Materials Science!