📰 Superconductivity at room temperature at your fingertips?

On March 8, 2023, an American team published a result that shook the superconducting community: a rare-earth-based material that would be superconductive at room temperature and at reasonable pressures, the Holy Grail never achieved until now. Alan Potratt and Sophie Tennessee, respectively physical (A physicist is a scientist who studies the field of physics, ie…) and solid-state chemists, share their thoughts on this surprising result published in the journal nature.

Delivering electricity without any loss over long distances is what will allow discovery Material (A substance is a substance of natural or synthetic origin formulated by man…) superconductors Temperature (Temperature is a physical quantity measured with a thermometer and…) ambient. there superconductivity (Superconductivity (or superconductivity) is a phenomenon characterized by …)It is a quantum phenomenon originally observed at an extremely low temperature, and is undoubtedly one of the most studied phenomena in solid-state physics and chemistry. But now, this behavior requires temperatures so low that it is reserved for a few applications such as the superconducting magnets used in magnetic resonance. nuclear (The term nuclear energy has two meanings depending on the context:) (NMR) or Medical Imaging (Medical imaging combines means of acquisition and retrieval of images from …) (MRI) or in particle accelerators.

A few years ago, a German team from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz led by superconductor specialist Michael Eremets launched the topic of “high-temperature” superconductivity of hydrates under high pressure, a candidate for quasi-ambient superconductivity, the absolute holy grail with potential strategic applications. That sparks a frantic race to record temperatures around the world. “This behavior, observed in this experiment for rare-earth hydrates such as lanthanum, requires such high pressures, on the order of 200 GPa or two million times Atmospheric pressure (Atmospheric pressure is the pressure of air at any point in the atmosphere.)only a few teams can technically access itexplains Alain Butratt, director research (Scientific research primarily defines all actions taken with a view to…) in the laboratory Crystallography (Crystallography is the science devoted to the study of crystalline materials…) and materials science (Chrismat, CNRS / École Nationale des Engineers de Caen / University of Normandy-Caen) and solid-state physicists.

Soon after, an American team led by Professor Ranga P. Dias of the University of Rochester announced in the journal nature has achieved superconductivity at room temperature for a compound identified as hydride of carbon and sulfur. “This finding, so controversial by society, will finally be removed from the literature because it has not been reproduced or verified by any other team, apart from being a principle of empirical science: it cannot be proven true without it. cloning (The possibility of reproducing a scientific experiment is one of the conditions that make it possible to include …)Alan Butrat says.

The same team just revealed it on Thursday, March 8, 2023 in the Journal nature Superconducting behavior of hydrates lutetium (Lutetium (or lutetium) is a chemical element on the periodic table of …) Nitrogen-doped at room temperature, this time, at pressures that are certainly high but more experimentally accessible. Something to shake the entire superconducting community! “The big difference here is that many solid physical chemistry laboratories are equipped to attempt to reproduce and verify this extraordinary result.Alan Butratt explains.

“In France, a community of solid-state chemists and scientists is well organized around the MEETICC research group, Electronic Materials, Unconventional Interactions and Coupling, which studies, among other things, superconductivityexplains Sophie Tennessee, research fellow at the Institute for Condensed Matter Chemistry at Purdue (ICMCB, CNRS/Polytechnic Institute of Purdue/Purdue University), who specializes in mineral hydrates.Once this result was published, we worked together to investigate the possibility of reproducing it and synthesizing and studying this lutetium hydride, whose exact composition, in particular the level of hydrogen and nitrogen, remains obscure.“. is she material (Matter is a substance of natural or synthetic origin formed by man…) in equilibrium, what is their crystal structure, what role does pressure play and how does room temperature superconductivity appear at such “low” pressures, many more questions raised by this recent publication that should spur more of a team in the field. “The challenge will be to see if another team can confirm this result in the coming months.Sophie Tennessee explains.

“At stake is the hope of one day being able to achieve such superconductivity at room temperature without having to keep the material under pressure, and there, it would be a real technological revolution.Alain Pautrat continues. Obviously, we must remain clear, the element used, lutetium, is the rarest of the rare earth elements and extracting and purifying it makes it an expensive material. Its primary role also needs clarification. Curiosity perhaps, but studying the mechanisms behind this behavior could one day lead materials chemists and physicists to find the ultimate superconductor…