3 ms·
None, at least not directly. It's an allotrope which can only exist under extreme physical conditions. There are many such allotropes of well-known substances.
by duskwuff 6y ago
None, at least not directly. It's an allotrope which can only exist under extreme physical conditions.
There are many such allotropes of well-known substances. For instance, solid water has over a dozen allotropes (including ice-IX, or "ice-nine", which will not turn you into a human popsicle). Most of the interesting allotropes of ice only form under pressures of >100 MPa, so they are never seen under terrestrial conditions. The same applies to most other allotropes, with a few notable exceptions in metals and metalloids (like tin and sulphur).
It's unclear to me what the author of the article had in mind when they suggested the "potential" that "black nitrogen might have for electronics". Unless the author is imagining electronics which must be placed under immense pressure and heated to thousands of degrees to remain stable?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- air7 6y agoThere's always the possibility that a method will be found that will allow the material to maintain at least some of these properties after "returning" to normal temp/pressures conditions.
- duskwuff 6y agoThat seems unlikely for a compound which is stable as a gas at STP. You can sometimes stabilize an allotrope of a compound which would otherwise be stable as another allotrope, but there's no real way (that I'm aware of) to stave off a phase transition, especially one as energetic as solid/gas.
- kaliszad 6y agoI was told, that at nanoscale high pressures in the gigapascal range are attainable somewhat easily by a friend of mine working here: https://tu-dresden.de/ing/elektrotechnik/ihm/NEM/die-professur/kontakt https://tu-dresden.de/ing/elektrotechnik/ihm/NEM/die-profess... so maybe this form of nitrogen could be in special nano-islands or something like that. I guess, it is important to understand the physics of the materials to a certain degree and then think about engineering. This research is clearly at the beginning of the first phase, so they maybe found some interesting properties that could be useful in electronics but that's about it.
- a3n 6y agoMy ignorant guess: During a manufacturing process?
- vsareto 6y agoIf it has good conductivity, they probably just write in "potential for electronics" out of habit or reflex. It's probably good for science fiction writers to be able to find this stuff.