It may be a surprise to report that researchers have finally found a superconductor that can transmit electricity without resistance at a temperature higher than ever recorded with any conductor so far.
The two studies’ reports provided evidence of superconductivity in the effect that appeared in compounds of lanthanum and hydrogen squeezed to extremely high pressures.
While the all-known superconductors must be chilled to function (making them impossible to use in real-world applications), the new superconductor appears to be different.
Integrating superconductors into electronic devices and transmission wires could help in saving large amounts of energy lost due to resistance. However, that has never been possible since such superconductors cannot work in that condition at room temperature.
The limitation provided by the superconductors forced the researcher to embark on more research, in finding a superconductor that can be used at room temperature.
Such can be integrated into all the electrical conductivity lines, to save energy lost due to resistance; which is also a source of heat in circuits.
Based on the challenge, the option had been to discover a higher-temperature superconductor for future electrical conductors. It is believed that such may possess the ability to conduct electricity at room temperature.
The current hydrogen sulfide known as the record-holder must be compressed before it can work below 203 Kelvin or about -700 Celsius.
A dramatic drop in the resistance of the lanthanum-hydrogen compounds has provided new evidence for superconductivity in regard to becoming the part of the future electrical conductors.
When the compounds were cooled below a certain temperature, a team of physicists found that their compound’s resistance plummeted at a temperature of 260 kelvin i.e. -13 0C.
Such temperature has been described as the temperature of a very cold winter day.
According to a physicist, Russell Hemley of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and colleagues report in a study posted online,
“The purported conductivity occurred when the material had been crushed with almost 2million times the atmospheric pressure by squeezing it between two diamonds.
Some of the samples were able to show signs of superconductivity at the higher temperature up to 280 kelvin i.e. about 70C.”
In separate research reported by physicist Mikhail Eremets of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and colleagues’ report posted online on August 21, another group found evidence of superconductivity in a lanthanum-hydrogen compound under chillier but still record-breaking conditions.
According to the report, the team crushed lanthanum and hydrogen in a diamond press to about 1.5 million times the atmospheric pressure. It was discovered that the compound’s resistance falls rapidly when cooled to about 215 kelvin i.e. -580C
The exact structure of the chemical compounds is not clear and the two groups are studying identical materials. Maybe the slight differences between the temperatures obtained by the two teams can be due to the differences in the teams’ samples.
In the research, Hemley and colleagues were able to show that the material’s structure was consistent with LaH10 by scattering X-rays from the compound.
The LaH10 means 10 hydrogen atoms for every lanthanum atom. Before now, the team had earlier predicted that the compound would be a superconductor at a relatively high temperature.
However, experts said that the requirement for ultrahigh-pressure makes the materials unlikely to be useful for applications. Meanwhile, a better understanding of high-temperature superconductivity could lead scientists to other, more practical superconductors for the future electrical conductors.
