3 ms·

If it is a thin film it may have to be a thin film to get the effect in which case you still need a million of them bundled together to get comparable currents.

If it is a thin film it may have to be a thin film to get the effect in which case you still need a million of them bundled together to get comparable currents. It's not a certainty but a fact that dials back the excitement of this announcement from potentially world changing to interesting but quite limited applications. >In 2008, Gozar et al. reported hightemperature interface superconductivity between metallic and insulating copper oxides(39). The thinner the layer, the greater the stress-inducing effect, the greater the strain, which seems to be the higher the superconducting transition temperature. Therefore, we argue that the stress caused by temperature and pressure brings a minute structural distortion and strain, which create an electronic state for superconductivity. So the paper seems to confirm this, though the authors seem to be hopeful for general applications. What we have here seems to be a clever trick to have ambient pressure superconductors by introducing crystal structure/microstructure stresses. >But surely that will happen soon if this is real. What I'm saying it that this is not so sure, may not be possible for a bulk material, may be insanely too expensive to be useful otherwise, and may be limited to very niche applications where milliamp superconductors might be useful (think sensors, microchips, and the like) Sure is cool, but at the same time... cool your jets, eh?

jacquesm 3y ago
Absolutely, but layers can be stacked (if they really are superconducting there won't be much of an issue to get rid of waste heat, there will be very little of that). As for cooling my jets: I don't think we'll see any real application of this in the next 10 years at a minimum, this stuff is the first step on a very long road towards commercialization. From the first mention of the photo electric effect (~1890) to practical (1956), affordable (1990's) solar panels took roughly a century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells I hope that this superconductor, assuming it's real can be fast tracked given our much improved knowledge of materials and fabrication methods. But I'm realistic enough to realize how much work would still have to be done even if it is real. The road from the lab to the shelf is a long and expensive one and even in the best of scenarios I can't imagine anything on a timescale of less than a decade.

jacquesm 3y ago

Absolutely, but layers can be stacked (if they really are superconducting there won't be much of an issue to get rid of waste heat, there will be very little of that). As for cooling my jets: I don't think we'll see any real application of this in the next 10 years at a minimum, this stuff is the first step on a very long road towards commercialization. From the first mention of the photo electric effect (~1890) to practical (1956), affordable (1990's) solar panels took roughly a century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells I hope that this superconductor, assuming it's real can be fast tracked given our much improved knowledge of materials and fabrication methods. But I'm realistic enough to realize how much work would still have to be done even if it is real. The road from the lab to the shelf is a long and expensive one and even in the best of scenarios I can't imagine anything on a timescale of less than a decade.