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Scientists sent x-rays through the superconducting material to study its structure.
Credit: Courtesy of Drozdov et al.
A superconductor lets electricity flow perfectly, without losing anything.
Now, scientists have discovered a superconducting material that can operate at record-breaking temperatures, reaching record levels, moving towards the goal of achieving such perfection at room temperature.
Make things cold enough and let the electrons pass through the metals without generating resistance, heating or slowing down. But this phenomenon, known as superconductivity, has historically operated only at extremely cold temperatures, slightly above absolute zero. This has rendered them useless for applications such as extremely efficient electrical wiring or incredibly fast supercomputers. In recent decades, scientists have created new superconducting materials that operate at higher and higher temperatures.
In the new study, a group of researchers came even closer to its goal by creating a superconducting material at minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) – one of the highest temperatures ever observed.
The team examined a class of materials called superconducting hydrides for which, theoretically, they would be superconducting at higher temperatures. To create these materials, they used a small device called anvil diamond cell, consisting of two small diamonds compressing the materials at extremely high pressures. [The Mysterious Physics of 7 Everyday Things]
They placed a tiny sample – a few microns long – of a soft, whitish metal called lanthanum inside a hole drilled in a thin sheet of metal filled with liquid hydrogen. The installation was connected to fine electrical wires. The device compressed the sample at pressures between 150 and 170 gigapascals, which is more than 1.5 million times the sea level pressure, the statement said. They then used X-rays to examine its structure.
At this high pressure, lanthanum and hydrogen combine to form lanthanum hydride.
The researchers found that at least 9 F (minus 23 C), lanthanum hydride had two out of three superconductivity properties. The material exhibited no resistance to electricity and its temperature dropped when a magnetic field was applied. They did not observe the third criterion, an ability to expel magnetic fields while cooling, because the sample was too small, according to a News and Views article published in the same issue of the journal Nature.
"From a scientific point of view, these findings suggest that we may be entering the transition between the discovery of superconductors by rules of thumb, intuition or luck, and guiding through concrete theoretical predictions. "said James Hamlin, an associate professor of physics at the University of Florida. was not part of the study, writes the comment.
Indeed, one group reported similar results in January in the journal Physical Review Letters. These researchers discovered that lanthanum hydride could be superconducting at an even higher temperature of 7 ° C (44 ° F), provided that the sample was brought to higher pressures – about 180 to 200 gigapascals.
But this new group found something very different: at these high pressures, the temperature at which the material displays superconductivity decreases sharply.
The reason for the discrepancy in the results is not clear. "In such cases, more experiments, data and independent studies are needed," Mikhail Eremets, researcher in chemistry and high pressure physics at the Max Institute, told Live Science. Planck of chemistry in Germany. "Now we can only discuss."
The team now plans to try to reduce the pressure and increase the temperature needed to create these superconducting materials, according to the release. In addition, researchers continue to search for new compounds that could be superconductors at high temperatures.
The group published its findings yesterday (May 22) in the journal Nature.
Originally published on Science live.
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