A team of researchers from Israel’s Tel Aviv University claims to have made a breakthrough in the development of superconductors that operate at higher temperatures than existing superconducting materials.
Able to continuously carry electrical current without suffering any of the losses associated with traditional conductors, superconductors have long been viewed as the ‘holy grail’ of power transmission.
But creating a true superconductor is tricky, and the extremely low operating temperature of existing materials (around 30K) makes deployment extremely challenging.
For almost two decades, scientists have been looking at ways of tweaking superconducting materials to operate a higher temperatures. This is typically achieved using difficult chemical doping techniques — which raise the so-called critical temperature of the material through the addition or removal of particular ions.
However, the Tel Aviv team, led by Prof Yoram Dagan, believes that it has found a simpler way of altering a material’s critical temperature by simply shining light onto a thin, one-molecule-thick coating that can be deposited on a superconducting film.
During experiments involving three separate molecular coatings, Dagan’s team found that the critical temperature could be raised and lowered simply by switching a light source on and off. Dagan said that his group has effectively developed a ‘knob’ for controlling the temperature of superconducting materials.
Just a query but should the title of this article ” Researchers shed light on semiconductor development” actually read superconductor delevelopement ?
The operating temperature of the high temperature superconductors (e.g., BSCCO, YBCO) are > 77 K, which makes cooling much easier as liquid nitrogen is involved. Could more information be provided on the materials involved in this development, as well as how much the critical currents are increased? Links to published work (even an arXiv link) would be handy, too. And what is a “true superconductor”?
Anon. The great hope is one day room temperature superconductors will be developed.
As for defining a ‘True Superconductor’; I would say it is “any material which allows electricity to flow with no measurable losses”.
@JohnK, but is it really a true superconductor?
There are no electrical losses, but there is still energy required for the system to operate.
THIS IS GREAT NEWS !
I HOPE IT’S NOT A FLUKE OR OBSERVATION.
ANYWAY, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND SOMEDAY SOON THE ROOM TEMERATURE SUPERCONDUCTOR CAN BE ACHIEVED.
THANKS !
Andy H – It seems maybe you are confusing ‘perpetual motion’ with ‘Superconductivity.
Imagine an electrical conductor currently in use and several miles long next to a ‘room temp Superconducting’ wire of the same length.
The conventional wire would lose a significant proportion of the electrical power transmitted as heat, whilst the superconductor, having no resistance to the passage of electricity, would lose none of the power input. As an added benefit, this would also allow for much smaller cross-section wires.
I’m not sure of the exact figure, but I believe about half of all Electricity generated in the UK is lost during transmission before it reaches the end users.
Superconductiong wires would allow 100% of generated capacity to reach the end user. UK electricity consumption halved at a stroke. Worthwhile resesearch, I believe.
@ John K,
I understand this, but the current ‘superconductors’ require something to keep them cool, room temperature SC’s are still some way off.
My point was as to keep the systems cool to provide a ‘Superconducting material’ requires energy, are they really superconductors as they are still consuming energy?