A difference of 32 degrees Fahrenheit is no small thing. In springtime, for example, it's the difference between whether you need a jacket or not.
For two University of Houston professors, a difference of 32 degrees is a scientific breakthrough.
"We got very excited. We even didn't sleep that night," said Liangzi Deng, an assistant professor at the University of Houston's physics department. "Of course, we considered whether it was real, there are many things ongoing, but at that moment we were really celebrating that we'd made a world record."
Deng, alongside Paul C.W. Chu and others, had broken the record for the warmest temperature at which an object becomes a superconductor, raising it by about 32 degrees. It's a discovery that could have implications for the energy industry and other technology.
Their study, published this month in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” found that some materials can become a superconductor at warmer temperatures when placed under extreme pressure. It's a significant step in the development of more efficient energy storage and transmission.
"That's the eureka moment," Chu said.
Superconductivity, explained
By nature, all objects have some sort of electrical resistance at room temperature. As such, when electricity is conducted, some of that energy is lost as heat. For example, about 8% of energy is lost when transmitting electricity to the grid, said Chu, a physics professor who was also the founding director and chief scientist of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston.
Some objects called superconductors can be chilled to extreme temperatures, which removes that resistance. Superconductivity, which was discovered in 1911, curbs energy loss and could create more efficient electricity generation, such as for data centers or the state's electrical grid.
"In the summer in Texas, you know it’s hot, right?" Deng said. "So, when you have those electricity transports, we lost around 10% of the electric power — the energy — because of the resistance heating. So, imagine if we replace everything with superconductors. Then we’ll save this 10%. That’s a lot of energy and money."
Those extreme temperatures, which scientists call transition temperatures, are very extreme. It varies from object to object but typically falls somewhere in the ballpark of below 20 Kelvin, according to Britannica, which is about 423 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.
Since superconductivity’s discovery, scientists have experimented to find objects with a transition temperature warmer than that. The record, set in 1993, was for a mercury-based, copper-oxide ceramic — which scientists called Hg1223 — with a record temperature of 133 Kelvin, or 220 degrees below zero. For more than 30 years, that was the warmest temperature for any superconductivity.
Now, researchers at UH say they've exceeded that record by more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
"We have to be cautious because this is important," Chu said in an interview with Houston Public Media. "Eureka moment, you cannot have it every second. Then people lose confidence in you. So, we kept those things. We continued testing it until it’s certain, that we may announce it."
The breakthrough this go-around was a process of applying intense pressure to the substance, much as laboratories will do when creating diamonds. While under pressure, the material is cooled and the pressure quickly stops. This process, known as pressure quenching, made the substance a superconductor at a relatively warmer level than ever before.
In their paper — with the dense title, "Ambient-pressure 151-K superconductivity in HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8+δ via pressure quench" — Chu and Deng say their Hg1223 substance reached a temperature of 151 Kelvin, or 188 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, the warmest temperature of any superconductor documented in history.
An energy breakthrough?
The discovery could yield tangible benefits, particularly with energy transmission. Using superconductors would be more efficient, given that they don't waste any energy.
Beyond data centers and the power grid, the research could prove beneficial in other ways. Nuclear fusion requires superconducted magnets to create a magnetic field. In the medical field, MRIs require superconductors.
The issue, naturally, is it also requires a lot of energy to keep superconductors cool enough to function at such subzero temperatures. As such, Chu and Deng view their breakthrough as a stepping stone rather than the endgame, which is finding a way for superconductors to operate at room temperature.
"Room-temperature superconductivity has been seen as a ‘holy grail' by scientists for over a century," said Rohit Prasankumar, director of superconductivity research at Intellectual Ventures, which funded the study. "The UH team's result shows that this goal is closer than ever before. However, the distance between the new record set in this study and room temperature is still about 140 degrees (Celsius). Closing this gap will require concerted, intentional efforts by the broader scientific community, including materials scientists, chemists, and engineers, as well as physicists."
Just days after their remarkable publication, Chu and Deng have their sights set on future research.
"Of course, 151 [degrees Kelvin] is still on the low, low side," Chu said. "We like to continue to push to a higher one. Right now, we raise it about the existing value by 18 Kelvin. So that's quite an accomplishment. We'd like to get it to 300 degrees Kelvin. That's our ultimate goal."
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