Posted on 05/14/2015 10:48:49 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University are making a bold claim: an entirely new state of matter. The team, led by Kosmas Prassides, says they've created what's called a Jahn-Teller metal by inserting rubidium, a strange alkali metal element, into buckyballs, a pure carbon structure which has a spherical shape from a series of interlocking polygons (think of the Epcot Center, but in microscopic size.)
Buckyballs, which are somewhat related to other supermaterials like graphene and carbon nanotubes, are already known for their superconductive capabilities. Here, while combining buckyballs and rubidium, the researchers created a complex crystalline structure that seemed to conduct, insulate, and magnetize while acting as a metal. It goes far beyond what ordinary matter can do, Motherboard explains.
We all know solids, liquids, gases, and, probably, plasmas, but beyond these there's an entire catalog of matter alternatives: Bose–Einstein condensate, degenerate matter, supersolids/superfluids, quark-gluon plasma, etc. The difference is that all those alternatives are lab-created and don't have much place out in the real world of nature. The Prassides group's new material is one of those states.
So what's the big deal? Applying pressure to the compound when it's in the conductor/insulator phase turns it into the weird state of matter, and also makes it superconductive at (relatively) high temperatures. That second part has to be replicated by other scientists in other labs under the same conditions, but if it's true, that's your "whoa" moment.
We know that there are high-temperature superconductors—materials that become superconductive as warm as -211 degrees Fahrenheit. That is still really cold. But most superconductors that we know of need to be barely above absolute zero. Understanding and then mastering high-temperature superconductors, which this weird state of matter could help researchers to do, could make all sorts of new things possible in computing, transportation, infrastructure ... sort of everything. Discoveries of superinsulators in 2008 sort of hinted that this state of matter was possible, but confirmation would be a game changer for materials science.
Source: Motherboard via Science Alert
Note: A previous version of this article said the material in this study could become superconductive at -211 degrees F. In fact, the materials in this study reached only as high as about -397 degrees F.
Unobtainium
In the immortal words of Peter Sellers—”Not Anymore.”
"I like it."
Turbinium
Slightly confused here.... aren’t insulators used to separate conductors? What good is a material that conducts, as an insulator?
“Slightly confused here.... aren’t insulators used to separate conductors? What good is a material that conducts, as an insulator?”
“It goes far beyond what ordinary matter can do”
Not sure how, myself. They seem opposite properties to me.
“Slightly confused here.... aren’t insulators used to separate conductors? What good is a material that conducts, as an insulator?”
Think of a switch. When off, the air insulates the lightbulb from the voltage.
When on, it conducts.
Now think of semi-conductors. Normally insulates but with an applied voltage, become ‘switch on’.
Now think of a ‘wire’ that is an insulator that when pressure is applied becomes ‘switched on’.
Only now that ‘wire’ is a superconducting wire!
“that this new state of matter does both at the same time.”
Not at the same time. But the matter will transition from insulator to conductor.
ahh—that makes more sense
It slices, it dices, and it makes Julienne fries!
Insulators are used to physically separate conductors. At what point do you want your insulator to become a conductor, and short out all that it protects?
Still confused!
Insulators stop electricity. Conductors make electricity flow. On and off. Ones and zeroes. Computers.
The Motherboard link has the crux:
“What’s weird about Jehn-Teller metals is that so far we really have no idea what causes the electrons within them to pair up. In a conventional superconductor, they do it because they’re swapping phonons, which are excitations (”quasiparticles”) found within the molecular lattice of some material, and the effect is attraction. Again, this takes extremely cold temperatures.
If Jehn-Teller metals involve some other electron pairing mechanism, that might mean the possibility of superconductivity occurring at not-so-cold temperatures. Researchers just have to figure out what that other mechanism is...”
So: it possibly exhibits a new mechanism for superconductivity.
Did you not understand the analogy of the switch?
Insulator == OFF.
Conductor == ON.
Think!
Mechanical switches transition from insulators to conductors!
Vacuum tubes transition from insulators to conductors!
Transistors transition from insulators to conductors!
Buckyballs! Of course! And here I was trying to get the same result with traditional Jarts.
I knew, I knew it. The Salad Shooter is back!!
They finally found a use for that warehouse full of them.
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