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All these headlines of near room temperature superconductivity always fail to mention that its at astronomically large pressures. Yes its still interesting becu

All these headlines of near room temperature superconductivity always fail to mention that its at astronomically large pressures. Yes its still interesting becuase such a finding (if verified) would provide new fodder for theorists, but we can try to report science in a less clickbaity fashion.

eloff 4y ago
This one is at 10kpa. Nearly ambient pressure. If it’s for real, it’d be an historic breakthrough.
- bewaretheirs 4y ago
  Abstract says 10kbar, which is I believe one gigapascal. It's near ambient only relative to prior work (at 267 Gpa).
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Sure, but for context, normal atmospheric pressure is 101 kPa. 1 GPa is a lot closer to ambient than 250+ Gpa. AFAICT [0], nothing with a critical temperature above the freezing point of water (273.2 K) has yet been discovered, and everything with a critical temp above "dry ice" temperatures (194.6 K) needs at least 155 GPa. As such, this would seem to represent truly exponential progress in terms of both critical temperature and required pressures. With luck, we'll be able to carry these things a bit further to make it actually practical for some applications that currently require cryogenic temperatures. [0]: I'm not a materials scientist or any kind of physicist, so I'm leaning a bit on Wikipedia here. Please correct me if I'm wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconductivity#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconducti...
    - Retric 4y ago
      Closer sure, but 1GPa is much closer logarithmicly to 250 Gpa than normal atmospheric pressure.
- fwlr 4y ago
  10kbar, not 10kpa (10kpa would be below sea level air pressure). For reference, that’s about 150psi, which is well within conventional engineering range. You can pick up Schedule 40 PVC pipe at your local hardware store that will do 150psi comfortably.
  - kens 4y ago
    No, that's off by three orders of magnitude. 10 kbar is 145,000 psi. (Google gives you the wrong answer because it treats "10 bar in psi" and "10 kbar in psi" identically which is bad.)
    - fwlr 4y ago
      Holy hell (Serves me right for not sanity-checking, I know 1 bar is 14 psi, I could have picked that up if I was paying attention)
semireg 4y ago
Another article stated that the large pressure requirements are already known/solved in current chip designs using some kind of chemistry-induced pressurization. I’m a fish out of water on this topic, but maybe an analogy is tempered glass existing in equilibrium at 10,000 PSI.
Wingman4l7 4y ago
Indeed -- very frustrating. It has been commonly understood that the holy grail, "room temperature superconductivity", always has also implied ambient pressures (or at the very least, pressures not requiring a diamond anvil).
tomohelix 4y ago
It is a big breakthrough regardless. 200-300GPa is basically the absolute limit of what we can achieve. Reducing it 200 folds put it in the realm of possibility for a commercial application.

eloff 4y ago

This one is at 10kpa. Nearly ambient pressure. If it’s for real, it’d be an historic breakthrough.

bewaretheirs 4y ago
Abstract says 10kbar, which is I believe one gigapascal. It's near ambient only relative to prior work (at 267 Gpa).
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Sure, but for context, normal atmospheric pressure is 101 kPa. 1 GPa is a lot closer to ambient than 250+ Gpa. AFAICT [0], nothing with a critical temperature above the freezing point of water (273.2 K) has yet been discovered, and everything with a critical temp above "dry ice" temperatures (194.6 K) needs at least 155 GPa. As such, this would seem to represent truly exponential progress in terms of both critical temperature and required pressures. With luck, we'll be able to carry these things a bit further to make it actually practical for some applications that currently require cryogenic temperatures. [0]: I'm not a materials scientist or any kind of physicist, so I'm leaning a bit on Wikipedia here. Please correct me if I'm wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconductivity#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconducti...
  - Retric 4y ago
    Closer sure, but 1GPa is much closer logarithmicly to 250 Gpa than normal atmospheric pressure.
fwlr 4y ago
10kbar, not 10kpa (10kpa would be below sea level air pressure). For reference, that’s about 150psi, which is well within conventional engineering range. You can pick up Schedule 40 PVC pipe at your local hardware store that will do 150psi comfortably.
- kens 4y ago
  No, that's off by three orders of magnitude. 10 kbar is 145,000 psi. (Google gives you the wrong answer because it treats "10 bar in psi" and "10 kbar in psi" identically which is bad.)
  - fwlr 4y ago
    Holy hell (Serves me right for not sanity-checking, I know 1 bar is 14 psi, I could have picked that up if I was paying attention)

semireg 4y ago

Another article stated that the large pressure requirements are already known/solved in current chip designs using some kind of chemistry-induced pressurization. I’m a fish out of water on this topic, but maybe an analogy is tempered glass existing in equilibrium at 10,000 PSI.

Wingman4l7 4y ago

Indeed -- very frustrating. It has been commonly understood that the holy grail, "room temperature superconductivity", always has also implied ambient pressures (or at the very least, pressures not requiring a diamond anvil).

tomohelix 4y ago

It is a big breakthrough regardless. 200-300GPa is basically the absolute limit of what we can achieve. Reducing it 200 folds put it in the realm of possibility for a commercial application.