Posted on 08/21/2019 3:40:25 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Physicists have known since 1911 that electricity can flow without resistance in materials called superconductors. And in 1957, they figured out why: Under specific conditions, including typically very cold temperatures, electrons join together in pairs—something that's normally forbidden due to their mutual repulsion—and as pairs, they can flow freely.
Electron pairs are named for Leon Cooper, the physicist who first described them. In addition to explaining classical superconductivity, physicists believe Cooper pairs bring about high-temperature superconductivity, an unconventional variant discovered in the 1980s. It was dubbed "high-temperature" because it occurs at temperatures that, although still very cold, are considerably higher those of classical superconductors. Physicists have long dreamed of making high-temperature superconductors that work at room temperature, a development that would radically change the way energy is made, moved and used worldwide.
But while physicists have a clear understanding of how and why electron pairing happens in classical superconductors, the same cannot be said of high-temperature superconductors like the lanthanum strontium copper oxide (LSCO) featured in the new study.
Every superconductor has a critical temperature at which electrical resistance disappears. Natelson said theories and studies of copper-oxide superconductors over that past 20 years have suggested that Cooper pairs form above this critical temperature and only become coherently mobile when the material is cooled to the critical temperature.
In the Nature study, Natelson and colleagues found evidence of this higher energy pairing in the conduction noise in ultrapure LCSO samples grown in the lab of Brookhaven's Ivan Božović, co-corresponding author of the study.
By measuring the variation in the discrete amount of electrical charge flowing through LCSO junctions, Natelson and colleagues found that passage of single electrons could not account for the amount of charge flowing through the junctions at temperatures and voltages well above the critical temperature where superconductivity occurred.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Is this article about mainstreaming the homosexual lifestyle?
Lanthanum strontium copper oxide... I’m going to check and see if I have any of that stuff laying around.
Gay electrons?
Sounds like negative lifestyle.
I keep mine in the same drawer as the unobtanium.
Nope, they have opposite spin. It’s cool.
Why do science articles on FR draw mostly dumb jokes?
They are trying to adopt.
Because scientists are easily bemused.
Because it’s a *political* forum.
Thanks BenLurkin. Superconductivity ping, with the new ping message graphics host.
Can I buy one of these humans to power all my stuff, instead of using energy derived from earth-killing fossil fuels?
I thought that pic of John Bardeen was President Merkin Muffley.
Kudos for recognizing John Bardeen! And I was stumped, had to look up MM, and I have seen that movie (granted, it was a loooong time ago...)
Prof. Herman Haus of MIT did some work in the past few decades on a new model (differs from the QM model) of the electron (on account of a free electron laser he was working to develop); it would behoove these geniuses who want a better understanding of superconductivity to become familiar with his work and the improved model of the elctron ...
Well, his name was under the picture, so... :-P
It's cold. They are trying to stay warm.
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