First room temperature and pressure superconductor discovered
First room temperature and pressure superconductor discovered
Research paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008
Just a word of caution: Non-peer reviewed, non-replicated, rushed-looking preprint, on a topic with a long history of controversy and retractions. So don't get too excited yet.
Okay so I agree that it needs to be peer reviewed and independently verified before we can trust it. But how exactly does the preprint look rushed?
Have you.. seen the.. figures?!! Also, the Arxiv listing had a spelling mistake. "First" was spelled as "firs".
Reposting my comment from another thread to add a bit of context in case anyone’s curious.
So I read the paper, and here’s a tldr about how their material apparently gains its properties.
It is hypothesized that superconductivity properties emerge from very specific strains induced in the material. Hence why most of the discovered superconductors require either to be cooled down to very low temperatures, or to be under high pressures. Both shrink the material.
What this paper claims is that they have achieved a similar effect chemically by replacing some lead ions with copper ions, which are a bit smaller (87 pm for Cu vs 133 pm for Pb). This shrinks the material by 0.48%, and that added strain induces superconductivity. This is why it apparently works at room temperature — you no longer need high pressures or extreme cold to create the needed deformation.
Can’t really comment on how actually feasible or long-lasting this effect is, but it looks surprisingly promising. At least as a starting point for future experiments. Can’t wait for other labs’ reproduction attempts. If it turns out to be true, this is an extremely important and world-changing discovery.
Interesting and it wouldn't be a ceramic. Downside is that it is lead based. Not exactly good for the environment or very flexible without breaking. Lead doesn't make good wire.
Not thrilled that it is a lead alloy. Just when we are starting to get rid of all the lead in our communities, this would put it back as part of critical infrastructure everywhere...
As others have mentioned lead is still everywhere. All our combustion car batteries are still lead/acid batteries, but if what /u/[email protected] mentioned the paper claims is true, the method for inducing superconductivity in the metal could possibly be used to create other lead free ones.
I would be very skeptical of this paper's claims.
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It hasnt been peer reviewed
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The data hasn't been replicated
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The clains being made are extraordinary. i.e a cheap material that has a superconduction transition temperature 200 degrees kelvin above the cuprates at standard pressure
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The fragility of this superconductive state makes me wonder if what theyre claiming to observe is an artifact (pathological science) rather than a real effect
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The paper is "rough around the edges" i.e multiple proofreading mistakes and has undergone little apparent editing for quality
There's no room for pathological science
https://sciencecast.org/casts/suc384jly50n
The only way to do something like that with diamagnetism or ferromagnetism is to deliberately fake the arrangement of magnets.
There is always room for pathological science. Especially when something like room temperature superconductors are the subject in question. A good researcher will try to find and test all the alternative hypotheses that they can. i.e contrast the cisplatin paper with fleischmann and pons' paper about cold fusion. This paper reminds me a lot more of the cold fusion paper than it does the cisplatin paper. Another example of a bad paper would be NASA's announcement of a microbe that used an Arsenic containing analog of DNA.
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Sceptical because "revolutionary" discoveries like this always end up either being bogus or have some massive caveat that makes them effectively useless outside of very specific scenarios.
Thought I will be pleasantly surprised if proven wrong
This is huge, is it not? No loss in potential energy means that I could have an infinitely floating coffee cup without the use of power, no?
It is absolutely huge
It means that you can make supercapacitors which have larger energy storage density than our current batteries by who knows how many times
What's the connection between conductivity and capacitance?
It's been a while....
If it were real maybe. But having read the paper, I am very skeptical that it is.
I didn't read or watch the video yet, but if it works like the current superconductors, the magnetic fields will be repealed and cannot enter the superconductor.
However currently is it possible to make superconductors with impurities allowing the magnetic fields to enter (through the impurities) in the superconductor. This allow quantum locking / magnetic locking.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning
However as said above, you need a magnetic field. So either a permanent magnet or by generating one with electricity use.
Another interesting thing is that superconductors allow to store electricity for an indefinite amount of time. Like you put eletrcitiy in it and it will still be in it after 20+ years. However it is not an infinite energy. If it generates work or it is extracted from there, it will dissipate. As the energy will be used up.
What's the purpose of posting these results before they have been peer reviewed and reproduced?
Because this is how they get peer reviewed and reproduced? Publishing is how science works?
No you should put the paper in a filing cabinet somewhere and see what happens
Bragging and getting the names of the researchers in the press.
I mean; that’s a sure fire way to have it all backfire isn’t it? When someone else tries to replicate it and it doesn’t work? And they all get called out for it being utter bullshit?
What is this absolute garbage take that scientists just making extraordinary claims for “prestige” or whatever? They’ll be laughed out of the profession if they’re intentionally lying in a paper.
Now, it could be that they think they’re on to something only to have it proven false for one reason or another (flawed experiment, incorrect hypothesis, unaccounted factors etc) but that’s more in line with how peer review works - it’s not the claim that makes you famous it’s the proof.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that until this is peer-reviewed and replicated, this is worthless.
I'll also gladly eat my shorts if it turns out they actually did it but ATM I'm very skeptical.
I do hope they are right I would love see you eat your shorts.
Incidentally, here's the same research with more co-authors.
If they take too long the room temperature won't be enough due the increase in temperatures 😅 /s
Tc is allegedly 120C, so we,ve got a couple of years if it's not a scam.
anyone with a better understanding able to articulate potential trade-offs/complications to using this in practical applications?
*edited:
more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36864624the critical field and critical current seem very low … This means you can't actually push big current through this thing (yet). You can't make a powerful magnet, and you can't make viable power lines
The method to produce this material as described in the related paper [1] is fairly simple and could be done at home with a $200 home metal melting furnace from amazon and the precursors (which also seem to be fairly standard easy to obtain metals)
Read this comment thread from SC researchers: <reddit link removed>
Lots of problems with the paper, they claim. It is not up to the standards of current SC research. One of them says Dias's work shows more merit than this.Insane capacity batteries
Lossless power transmission via wires
Better magnetically levitating trains
Much more power efficient computers, electronics
The list is huge
It would be a real bummer if this came out to be untrue. However it's simple enough to replicate, so we will know soon enough
In amongst that discussion is a lot of reason to hope this will be better, several note that the researchers made a low quality sample "spongy crap" and that in other superconductors made at that quality are just as limited, only becoming useful when better quality samples are made
that’s great news! let’s hope replication and peer review is smooth!
That "levitation" video is worthless: One edge of it is still resting on the magnet, and plain old steel screws will do that if you put them on a plain old speaker magnet. If they can't even manage to show actual levitation after claiming it, then I highly suspect the rest of the claims are just as invalid.
Here we go again...
Maybe it's me misunderstanding, but 127 is considered room temp?
127c is the maximum operating temperature. If it goes above that, it looses superconductivity.
This material below 127c (which is insanely hot for superconductors) will be superconductive.
Operating range is -273c to 127c
Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
To be honest, this seems very sus to me. A big paper with only three authors?! I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find the lab from which it has been published. It's almost there is no online presence. In another paper they put out along with it, they say that they show Meissner effect (levitating effect of a superconductor) and that a video is attached. I looked for the video but I wasn't able to find it. :/
A big paper with only three authors?!
That part isn't so unusual, especially in condensed matter, where labs can be relatively small. For example, the paper announcing the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in 1986 only had two authors (Bednorz & Müller).
I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find the lab from which it has been published.
For those who didn't look into the paper: They seem to work for a company called "Quantum Energy Research Centre, Inc.", which does sound a bit... woo-y to me. At least the third author seems to work at Korea University, which, according to Wikipedia, is relatively prestigious. Who knows, maybe the authors just can't be bothered to use Latex and didn't choose the name of the company or didn't put too much thought into it, but for the moment I'm also rather skeptical.
Yeah, in olden times sure. You can say a big paper like EPR paradox one, was written as only three people. These days, a lot of people would jump on a big paper since citations is the currency of research now.
They published another version with a longer list of authors. They published this one under three authors since that’s the maximum number you can split a Nobel prize between. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the real deal, but it means that the researchers sure think it is.
If this were true they wouldn’t have released this, they’d have released a room temperature and pressure superconductor and instantly become billionaires.
Really? That'd be something else.
I can count on my hands the amount of times I've seen revolutionary room conditions superconductor papers, which may not be too many, but enough to quickly dismiss this especially because it looks really barebones
