Get the first superconductor at room temperature

2020/10/20 Agirre Ruiz de Arkaute, Aitziber - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Fisika

One of the great challenges of experimental physics has just materialized, as demonstrated by the cover of the journal Nature: for the first time they have achieved a superconductor material at room temperature. Specifically at 15ºC.

The new achievement is an important step in the introduction of superconductive materials. In fact, since the superconductivity was discovered in 1911, it has only been achieved at very cold temperatures, and the maintenance of materials at cryogenic temperatures makes any application too expensive.The previous brand was obtained by Lantano hydride (LaH10) a year ago: -Superconductor at 10ºC. On this occasion it has been overcome by another hydride: the hydride of carbonous sulfur (H3S). Hydrogen (H2S) and hydrogen (H2) have been formed by methane reaction (CH4).

However, obtaining the new superconductor material has still required enormous pressures: 267 billion steps of pressure, 75% of the existing in the core of the Earth. In order for this pressure to occur in the laboratory, they had to use a cell of two diamonds in which they exert an opposing force. The next challenge is clear to physicists: being able to create a superconductor at room temperature at room pressure. Otherwise, it will hardly occur in the volume required for any application. Only picolites can be formed in the diamond cell, that is, one million of a microliter.

The challenge of achieving environmental pressure is still far away, but only when the real possibility of producing at low pressures is it possible to develop such mentioned applications: electrical networks that transport electricity with zero resistance, electronics generating much more efficient electronic memory, transport by levitation, etc.