5 ms·
That is all nice, but still theoretical. Good luck constructing material made with flourine in a very specific way.
by deletes 13y ago
That is all nice, but still theoretical. Good luck constructing material made with flourine in a very specific way.
- atrus 13y agoBut the addition of the Florine raised the operating temperature. The tin itself can still be constructed and tested.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWe can push single atoms around in the lab, so I don't think there will be too many problems in testing this experimentally.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoHeard from someone who has done that kind of thing: it's really hard, it mostly fails. When you see the pretty images, they are the results of months of frustrating, mostly-failure lab work. Surfaces are hard, because everything affects everything, and changes ripple around moving the stuff you just placed.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoIs really hard, but there are experts who specialise in really hard things. My point was that it is not harder than many other hard things that people regularly accomplish.
- EdwardCoffin 13y agoDo you actually have concrete evidence that the hardness of this particular thing is similarly difficult to these other hard things that are regularly accomplished, or is this just "hard things are the same as other things also termed hard"? My impression is that pushing atoms around and getting them to actually stay where they have been pushed are different things.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoI expect it to be about as difficult as this - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1466604901000216 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1466604901... - but not quite as difficult as this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0 - or this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
- EdwardCoffin 13y agoYou believe that single atoms of the most reactive element (fluorine) will not be quite as difficult as carbon monoxide molecules [1] to push around? [1] The pixels in the first of the two videos you linked to, according to http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/madewithatoms.shtml#fbid=I5iCfOIIvqF http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/madewithatoms.shtml#fbi...
- moocowduckquack 13y agoI don't believe that you would have to push them around at all in the way that the IBM guys are pushing around those atoms, I put that forward as something that is harder to do. You'd probably start with batch making a ton of very small doped samples and then testing if any have unusually low resistance.
- Someone 13y agoMaybe, but that 'fluorine' part is cause for concern (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride.php http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_won...: "The latest addition to the long list of chemicals that I never hope to encounter takes us back to the wonderful world of fluorine chemistry. I'm always struck by how much work has taken place in that field, how long ago some of it was first done, and how many violently hideous compounds have been carefully studied.") There may be a perfectly harmless way to make this at industrial scale, but I would not bet on it.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoToothpaste manufacture must be nearly impossible then.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sp332 13y agoThat's sodium hexafluorosilicate (Na2SiF6). It's much less reactive than elemental fluorine.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoTin fluoride is also commonly used in toothpaste under the name of stannous fluoride.
- orware 13y agoHehe, I read "stannous" and immediately thought of Stannis Baratheon.
- marcosdumay 13y agoDon't compare a fluorine dopped metal with the kind of composts this guy talks about. Thate are plenty of "not that bad"* ways to deal with the element, and it creates quite inocuous ionic structures. * There are plenty of receipts with things like "...now heat your pure sulfuric acid over 300°C, until it becomes a gas...". Just throwing fluoridric acid over a metal is that kind of "safe".