The Green Optimistic

Researchers from Princeton University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Japan, using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, have discovered how in a superconducting material, at a nano-scale level, regions with stronger superconductivity helped regions with weaker superconductivity survive when exposed to higher temperature.

University of New Mexico researchers have surpassed themselves in a laser-based cooling project. Professor Mansoor Sheik-Bahae (et al.) and other researchers from the University of Pisa, Italy and the Los Alamos Institute created the world’s first all-solid-state cryocooler, that can be used from cooling infrared sensors to superconductors.

Following the dream of realizing a high-temperature superconductor, Cornell University researchers just found something about iron-based materials: they can be made to resemble electronic liquid crystals.

Engineers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the Florida State University are closer than ever to launching a new generation of high-field magnet, being 3,000 times stronger than an ordinary refrigerator magnet and will be able to generate a field about 45% more powerful than the strongest superconducting magnet currently available.

High temperature superconductors are today what some other time the philosopher’s stone used to be. Research done by Gennady Logvenov and his colleagues from the Brookehaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY sheds a new light on how scientists could engineer materials to obtain their desiderate: room temperature superconductors.

New Mexico may become a hub for this kind of energetic interaction, as Clovis is wanted to host the SuperStation, a hub using superconducting cables to link three networks: The Eastern Interconnection, The Western Interconnection and the Texas Interconnection. The 5GW carrying cables will be cooled down to -300°F and thus energy losses through heat will be infinitesimally close to zero.

A team of scientists from Cornell University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook announced this week in a specialized publication that they discovered, at least theoretically, how to turn hydrogen into a metal at significantly lower pressures than ever thought and make a superconductor out of it.

We have always thought of hydrogen as a fuel. Yet, there are many possibilities for this interesting element. Normally found in gaseous state, hydrogen is the most common in the universe. Recently, scientists from Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C., have found a way to compress hydrogen in such a manner that it becomes not only solid, but turns into a metallic superconducting state.

Dr. Ken Shih and some of his physicist colleagues, have reported the development of the thinnest superconducting metal layer ever created, a superconducting sheet of lead only two atoms thick.

The evolution of energy storage is not enough if we don’t also evolve the energy transportation methods. That’s why superconductors are not only good for us, but are also necessary in some applications where heat and energy loss, in general, have no place.

Imagine your television set working for 0.0001Watt, or your electric car charged by the Sun as you go. Imagine almost never ending batteries powering cool engines, no power lost through heat.

A team of researchers from the University of British Columbia, coordinated by Physics Assoc. Prof. Andrea Damascelli, has managed to develop a technique that controls the number of electrons from the surface of a high temperature superconductor. This procedure has been considered impossible for the last 20 years.

Sumitomo has shown a prototype of a car (a Toyota – shown in picture) that uses special type of engine, a liquid-nitrogen cooled one. The use of liquid nitrogen makes usual copper conductors have superconducting properties.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has discovered a new type of iron-based superconductor that shares the same magnetic properties with the older copper-oxide superconductors. The amazing fact is that the new superconductors have all those magnetic properties at higher temperatures.

Equipment
To make an yttrium-barium-copper-oxide superconductor, you will need:
* Yttrium Oxide
* Barium Carbonate (TOXIC)
* Cupric Oxide
* A Laboratory Furnace or a converted pottery kiln.
* Labware made of alumina.
* An Oxygen Source
* Liquid Nitrogen and a rare-earth magnet for testing and demonstrating the superconductors

Superconductors are the next viable step in energy savings worldwide. They are being used to carry energy in Sweden, USA, Japan, and the list extends pretty fast to other countries.
What is a superconductor?
Ok, this following paragraph is for the absolute-beginner.
As you know starting with 6th grade physics, a wire made of copper or aluminum or [...]