Viable superconducting material created at low temperature and low pressure
In a paper in Nature, the researchers describe a nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride (NDLH) that exhibits superconductivity at 69 degrees Fahrenheit (20.5 degrees Celsius) and 10 kilobars (145,000 pounds per square inch, or psi) of pressure.
Although 145,000 psi might still seem extraordinarily high (pressure at sea level is about 15 psi), strain engineering techniques routinely used in chip manufacturing, for example, incorporate materials held together by internal chemical pressures that are even higher.
Previously, the Dias team reported creating two materials—carbonaceous sulfur hydride and yttrium superhydride—that are superconducting at 58 degrees Fahrenheit/39 million psi and 12 degrees Fahrenheit/26 million psi respectively, in papers in Nature and Physical Review Letters.
Given the importance of the new discovery, Dias and his team went to unusual lengths to document their research and head off criticism that developed in the wake of the previous Nature paper, which led to a retraction by the journal's editors.
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-viable-su ... ssure.htmlThe 145,000 psi of pressure required to induce superconductivity is nearly two orders of magnitude lower than the previous low pressure created in Dias's lab.
LInk to the nature article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05742-0
Other novel superconductors have taken 30 years to ripe into commercial products. Worth posting anyway to put it on the screen.