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The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

arxiv.org

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Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#291
Obligatory Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri [1] quote:

"Important? Yes! Critical? Absolutely. I would go so far as to say that Superconducting Fiber alone makes our present economy possible."

Just imaging what the changes in our world would be if even half of what's possible comes true.

[1] https://alphacentauri.fandom.com/wiki/Superconductor

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effect is weak, but seeing that it behaves the same by flipping the magnet means that it can't be a standard magnet like we're used to seeing. (If I understood some of the other comments correctly). Other comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36867758

Copper does this already. It's not like ferromagnets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sENgdSF8ppA

[deleted]

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#293

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). If this is real, I'd expect some smart people from hackaday / youtube to reproduce this within weeks if not days. If this is real, it'll change society quickly and perman…

Ok, let me just add the obvious disclaimer: don't try this yourself unless you have a pretty good understanding of chemical lab safety.

Really.

It's more likely that you will contaminate your land, and possibly your neighbors land too than that you will manage to replicate it.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A note about MRI machines: they use liquid helium, not liquid nitrogen. LN2 isn't cold enough. Being able to eliminate liquid helium would be huge, as helium is scarse and quite expensive. Its roughly 10x the cost of LN2 and only going to get more expensive.

Previous improvements in high-temperature superconductors already made it possible to build a MRI machine using LN2 instead of LHe. I think all existing operational units still use LHe, but using LN2 has been demonstrated in lab conditions, and the next generation of machines will almost certainly use it instead of helium.

Or maybe not anymore ...

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#296
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure Is it late April Fools joke? It can’t be true. Edit: I am not surprised it levitates. I am astonished by how much it will reshape our world if it is real room-temp and ambient-pressure superconductor. Also is easy to produce. Just too good to be true.

One obvious application: your family doctor will have an MRI machine in her office, same for all physio clinics

MRI will get much cheaper, but you still need a good upper critical field and a proper access control (Zone 2/3/4) protocol. So probably not in very small buildings.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#297
post #179

A sister paper [0] has a photo of the material exhibiting the Meisner effect and levitating over a magnet, and claims to have a video too. Either they blatantly photoshopped the photo or they actually made a room temperature super conductor. I can’t see how the could have made a subtle mistake that resulted in magnetic levitation at room temp without making a superconductor. [0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtVjGWpbE7k I really need someone to bring me down a notch. This is too exciting!

I don't see anything special in that video, you're using eddy currents to exert forces on a conductive material. It wasn't levitating.

Given the apparent size/strength of the magnets, you could probably replicate that with a silver coin

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#298

Could someone explain why is this world changing?

I believe MRIs use superconductivity, so I assume any application of superconductors that doesn't require heavy, large, energy-consuming cooling will benefit greatly. Perhaps MRIs will become ubiquitous and cheap, something we all get every time we go to the doctor? Superconduction also has some weird magnetic properties I believe, so there could be benefits regarding maglev transport. And finally and most basically,…

I have no real idea what I'm talking about but figure 1 has critical magnetic flux curve ranging up to 3000 Oe so... in MRI-speak maybe it tops out before 0.3T? IIRC permanent magnet MRI have already been built in the 0.3T range, but they're very heavy and outclassed by the higher-field scanners. Clinical MRI nowadays typically runs at 1.5-3T (with some clinical scanners at 5-7T).

Having said that there is a resurgence of interest in low-field MRI lately, primarily marketed for use in developing nations and for combination machines that integrate radiation therapy. From what I've heard from diagnostic radiologists, the low-field MRI scanners seem to be of limited diagnostic value on their own.

Anyway that's just my thought that the best/first applications here may not be about generating magnetic fields.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#299
post #162

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). If this is real, I'd expect some smart people from hackaday / youtube to reproduce this within weeks if not days. If this is real, it'll change society quickly and perman…

You need a furnace that can hold a vacuum, though.

There's a surprising number of them around. I think the bottleneck for quick repro will be mat sci people, not equipment.
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