Over on ScienceDaily we learn that an international team of scientists have turned a common semiconductor germanium into a superconductor.
Researchers have been able to make the semiconductor germanium superconductive for the first time by incorporating gallium into its crystal lattice through the process of molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). MBE is the same process which is used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices such as diodes and MOSFETs and it involves carefully growing crystal lattice in layers atop a substrate.
When the germanium is doped with gallium the crystalline structure, though weakened, is preserved. This allows for the structure to become superconducting when its temperature is reduced to 3.5 Kelvin. Read all about it in the team’s paper here (PDF).
It is of course wonderful that our material science capabilities continue to advance, but the breakthrough we’re really looking forward to is room-temperature superconductors, and we’re not there yet. If you’re interested in progress in superconductors you might like to read about Floquet Majorana Fermions which we covered earlier this year.
The requirement of 3.5 Kelvin makes it nearly useless. However, it could be useful in deep space probes since there is an abundance of “really cold” out there. :)
IIRC the vacuum element of space usually makes it actually quite hard to keep cool. Any energy collected or generated will heat the craft and needs to be radiated away.
Doping has come far from it’s athlete days to it’s gallium ones, but it’s still about performance. :-p
Will robots be disqualified from feats-of-athleticism contests if they are doped up?
hey at least publish the paper link! https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.15421v3
thanks for digging that up!
Thanks! I’ll add that link in.
There are superconductors that work at the temperature of a walk-in freezer. That’s technically a room.
Hmm, the higest temperture super conductor is 15 C, which sounds good, until you find that is only under 150 GPa of pressure, which is a bit more than being placed under a large bag of peas
Under ambient pressure, the higest is -140C. If your freezer can reach that temperature, I am impressed
Some of us really want to keep our popsicles from melting too fast on a hot day, we take it very seriously.
A meat popsicle?
Unfortunately Mr. Willis predicted very well his future.
I’m curious what pressure would be usable. Like at what point could they make something like wire by cladding them in steel under tension to hold the pressure.
It might be hard to work with still but it would be amazing to only need ice and not LN to make them work.