5 ms·

Physicists discover a “family” of robust, superconducting graphene structures

134 points by filoeleven 4y ago

bastawhiz 4y ago
It seems like graphene production at scale has been a few years away for a decade or so now. Is there reasonably a future where all these incredible graphene-related technologies come to fruition within our lifetimes? Or is this just another cold fusion of a technology?
- parkingrift 4y ago
  Aluminum was extremely difficult to manufacture before the Hall-Heroult process. Only a true pessimist would assume we would never solve manufacturing problems with graphene.
- willis936 4y ago
  A few things: 1. REBCO was discovered in the 80s but took decades to work out the kinks in mass production of reliable tapes. 2. Cold fusion is psuedoscience. These results are real. Speculating that a technology be vaporware is a very different and weaker claim. How do you know that people will not solve the engineering problems preventing mass production? Because it wasn't immediately obvious how to do it in the past?
  - EarlKing 4y ago
    Cold fusion got rebranded as Lattice Confinement Fusion.
- raziel2701 4y ago
  Who knows, the academic research is often focused on finding out new physics and relies on hero samples. The many failed attempts to solve the engineering challenge of scalability and reliability in graphene are not very visible to the world.
jamiek88 4y ago
Fascinating. Sadly this still needs to be at super low temperature. This family of superconductors brings us no closer to to room temperature superconductors which would change the world.
- loufe 4y ago
  Thanks for your comment, if they broke the temperature requirement that would be BIG news.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  The main point I get is that the mechanism for this kind of superconductivity can be predicted fairly well on computers. That means that if it leads to room temperature superconductivity, we have an actual path to get it. And, also, there is always those old too noisy experiments that detected superconductivity on certain grains of graphite on temperatures up to 700K... That never gathered enough confidence, no matter how many times they were repeated. But maybe there's something there. EDIT: Anyway, the other article on the front-page about this experiment explains it much better.
- peter_retief 4y ago
  Really, I thought it "was" at room temperature?
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Higher temperature superconductors are already changing the world. Doesn’t have to be room temp. Some were used to help an MIT project reach >20 Tesla magnetic field, which wasn’t possible before… I think a great application for these higher temperature (and higher B-field, current) superconductors is reaching higher magnetic fields for fusion :)
  - RF_Savage 4y ago
    Or just MRI machines that can function without the increasingly expensive liquid helium.
yababa_y 4y ago
Has some high powered algebraist or topologist tried figuring out what is happening here mathematically? what structure is generated by all possible rotations that we are sampling here? multiplied by the many layers, what about nonuniform sheets? i’m imagining channels of various shapes on the inside… such a simple concept, yet such fascinating machinery for the measurements. i feel proud when i get a logic analyzer trace off an fpga pin!
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Hum... The article actually says it at some point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern https://everettyou.github.io/2018/05/21/Moire.html https://everettyou.github.io/2018/05/21/Moire.html I imagine there's no ELI5 explanation of a flat band from condensed matter physics.
  - yababa_y 4y ago
    That’s just the original discovery, I’m hoping someone would come in and look for more mathematical structure like the current efforts for topological insulators.
notfed 4y ago
> The findings could serve as a blueprint for designing practical, room-temperature superconductors. Cool, up to what temperature? > 1.7 kelvin Ok.
gtsop 4y ago
It is a disgrace to intellect when scientific knowledge comes with references to magic (even in quotes). Can't we just say "exact", "proper", "special", " specific", "just right"? Why magic?
- ben_w 4y ago
  If I say during a code review that "magic numbers should be documented", I expect the other person to know the phrase and not think I'm talking about The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. I expect similar things in other domains.
- willis936 4y ago
  The term "magic number" pops up in many domains. Often it's because the underlying mechanism that yields the empirical result is unknown. If that's the case here then that context should not be lost because of a semantics argument.
- DennisP 4y ago
  "Magic" doesn't necessarily mean supernatural. Google quotes the Oxford English dictionary to include these definitions: - something that has a delightfully unusual quality. - very effective in producing results, especially desired ones. I think those definitions make "magic" a better term in this case than any of your alternatives.

134 points by filoeleven 4y ago

It seems like graphene production at scale has been a few years away for a decade or so now. Is there reasonably a future where all these incredible graphene-related technologies come to fruition within our lifetimes? Or is this just another cold fusion of a technology?

parkingrift 4y ago
Aluminum was extremely difficult to manufacture before the Hall-Heroult process. Only a true pessimist would assume we would never solve manufacturing problems with graphene.
willis936 4y ago
A few things: 1. REBCO was discovered in the 80s but took decades to work out the kinks in mass production of reliable tapes. 2. Cold fusion is psuedoscience. These results are real. Speculating that a technology be vaporware is a very different and weaker claim. How do you know that people will not solve the engineering problems preventing mass production? Because it wasn't immediately obvious how to do it in the past?
- EarlKing 4y ago
  Cold fusion got rebranded as Lattice Confinement Fusion.
raziel2701 4y ago
Who knows, the academic research is often focused on finding out new physics and relies on hero samples. The many failed attempts to solve the engineering challenge of scalability and reliability in graphene are not very visible to the world.

jamiek88 4y ago

Fascinating. Sadly this still needs to be at super low temperature. This family of superconductors brings us no closer to to room temperature superconductors which would change the world.

loufe 4y ago
Thanks for your comment, if they broke the temperature requirement that would be BIG news.
marcosdumay 4y ago
The main point I get is that the mechanism for this kind of superconductivity can be predicted fairly well on computers. That means that if it leads to room temperature superconductivity, we have an actual path to get it. And, also, there is always those old too noisy experiments that detected superconductivity on certain grains of graphite on temperatures up to 700K... That never gathered enough confidence, no matter how many times they were repeated. But maybe there's something there. EDIT: Anyway, the other article on the front-page about this experiment explains it much better.
peter_retief 4y ago
Really, I thought it "was" at room temperature?
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Higher temperature superconductors are already changing the world. Doesn’t have to be room temp. Some were used to help an MIT project reach >20 Tesla magnetic field, which wasn’t possible before… I think a great application for these higher temperature (and higher B-field, current) superconductors is reaching higher magnetic fields for fusion :)
- RF_Savage 4y ago
  Or just MRI machines that can function without the increasingly expensive liquid helium.

yababa_y 4y ago

Has some high powered algebraist or topologist tried figuring out what is happening here mathematically? what structure is generated by all possible rotations that we are sampling here? multiplied by the many layers, what about nonuniform sheets? i’m imagining channels of various shapes on the inside… such a simple concept, yet such fascinating machinery for the measurements. i feel proud when i get a logic analyzer trace off an fpga pin!

marcosdumay 4y ago
Hum... The article actually says it at some point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern https://everettyou.github.io/2018/05/21/Moire.html https://everettyou.github.io/2018/05/21/Moire.html I imagine there's no ELI5 explanation of a flat band from condensed matter physics.
- yababa_y 4y ago
  That’s just the original discovery, I’m hoping someone would come in and look for more mathematical structure like the current efforts for topological insulators.

notfed 4y ago

> The findings could serve as a blueprint for designing practical, room-temperature superconductors. Cool, up to what temperature? > 1.7 kelvin Ok.

gtsop 4y ago

It is a disgrace to intellect when scientific knowledge comes with references to magic (even in quotes). Can't we just say "exact", "proper", "special", " specific", "just right"? Why magic?

ben_w 4y ago
If I say during a code review that "magic numbers should be documented", I expect the other person to know the phrase and not think I'm talking about The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. I expect similar things in other domains.
willis936 4y ago
The term "magic number" pops up in many domains. Often it's because the underlying mechanism that yields the empirical result is unknown. If that's the case here then that context should not be lost because of a semantics argument.
DennisP 4y ago
"Magic" doesn't necessarily mean supernatural. Google quotes the Oxford English dictionary to include these definitions: - something that has a delightfully unusual quality. - very effective in producing results, especially desired ones. I think those definitions make "magic" a better term in this case than any of your alternatives.