Inspenet, July 25, 2023.
Chinese scientists published last week in the journal Nature a study where they present a new superconducting material that reaches “relatively high” temperatures, making the possibilities it offers really significant.
The news has been disseminated by important Chinese media linked to the State, such as the Xinhua news agency, China Daily and the Sun Yat-Sen University news repository itself. They all refer to a “new material” or “new superconductor” that shows activity at significantly higher temperatures than usual. Specifically, they have worked with a nickelate compound.
How is this superconducting material composed?
Wang Meng of Sun Ya-Sen University and his colleagues have been working on a nickelate-composite material that stands out for two important features: first, its nickel content, as its name suggests; secondly, is that the scientists observed superconducting properties at temperatures as low as -193ºC in single crystals subjected to high pressure.
Although -193ºC cannot be considered a high temperature, the most interesting thing is that this “transition temperature”, where superconductivity occurs, is generally below -230ºC.
The potential of this material is remarkable. As mentioned in Xinhua, the nickelate with which the Chinese team has worked represents the second family of unconventional superconductors that reach the “transition temperature” above -196ºC. The other family is that of the cuprates , which contain copper and were discovered in the 1980s. This peculiarity goes beyond mere scientific interest and is certainly much more than a simple curiosity or interesting fact.
Cuprates or nickelates offer valuable opportunities for engineers. First of all, Sun Yat-sen University points out that they become superconductive, which makes them excellent “highways” for the free passage of electric current, in a temperature range that allows working with liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant without incurring great costs. This makes them an interesting quality. Similarly, these materials may provide a better understanding of how superconductivity itself works.
This discovery is promising both theoretically and practically. Researchers have been aware for decades that cuprates exhibit superconductivity at relatively high temperatures compared to other materials. However, the reason behind this high “transition temperature” has been a puzzle. The new finding may provide them with an opportunity to understand it more clearly.
“The electronic structure and magnetism of nickelate are completely different from those of cuprates. It can lead scientists to decipher the mechanism of high transition temperature superconductivity through comparative studies,” Wang Meng of Sun Yat-Sen told Xinhua.
future applications
Superconductors have vast potential in major fields such as information technology, medicine, scientific instrumentation development, energy, and even in the field of magnetic levitation trains, which China has been working on for years.
Wang notes that it is now feasible to carry out research on the mechanism and application of unconventional superconductivity in a new material. With the assistance of artificial intelligence , this new mechanism could be used to design and synthesize new superconductors capable of operating at relatively higher temperatures, thus facilitating its practical application.
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