Reddmatter

What is in the News ?

• U.S. scientists say they have produced the first commercially accessible material that eliminates the loss of energy as electricity moves along a wire, a breakthrough that could mean longer-lasting batteries, more-efficient power grids and improved high-speed trains.
• A group of researchers at the University of Rochester report that they have created a new superconductor that can operate at room temperature and a much lower pressure than previously discovered superconducting materials.

What are Superconductors ?

• Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with no resistance. 
• Unlike the more familiar conductors such as copper or steel, a superconductor can carry a current indefinitely without losing any energy. 
• Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by Heike Kammerlingh Onnes, who studied the resistance of solid mercury at cryogenic temperatures using the recently discovered liquid helium as ‘refrigerant’.
• Materials that can conduct electric currents without any loss—so-called superconductors—have been wildly impractical because they typically need to be extremely cooled, to around minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit, and subjected to extreme pressure to work.
• Superconductors also expel magnetic fields as they transition to the superconducting state (Meissner effect).

New Superconducting Material

• It is formed by combining lutetium (a rare earth metal) with hydrogen and nitrogen.
• It is named “reddmatter,” after observing how the material’s hue changed from blue to pink to red as it got compressed.
• It can operate at room temperature (21 degrees C) and much lower pressure (10,000 atmospheric pressure) than previously discovered superconducting materials.
• The new superconductor could help create lossless electrical grids, and better and cheaper magnets for use in future nuclear fusion reactors, among other things.

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