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New superconductor record - SeanR - 10-31-2018
A friend of mine pointed me toward this last night.
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/warmest-superconductor/
Now, I'm thinking that there are plenty of cases where flexibility of the superconductor isn't needed, so why not build the diamond around the superconductor, and leave it permanently at this high pressure?
The superconductor can be in a massive, high-tension "flaw" inside the grown diamond lattice.
To me, this puts superconductor based computing, and some magnetics, within reach, today. Power transmission will have to wait for a flexible superconducting cable, however.
RE: New superconductor record - Rynn - 10-31-2018
Neat, here's the Nature paper for those interested:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14964
Assuming a diamond jacket would be enough to hold the pressure (which itself would need to be enclosed in a coolant pipe to keep the temperature -70C) how would end point connectors work? unless the ends of the jacket are likewise sealed the material will explode out of either end of the pipe. Conductive filaments would need to be threaded through diamond caps without introducing too much of a flaw. Still it's very cool though and like you say uses for non-power transmission like smaller MRI machines and maybe even fusion reactors seem likely.
RE: New superconductor record - SeanR - 10-31-2018
(10-31-2018, 12:36 AM)Rynn Wrote: Neat, here's the Nature paper for those interested:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14964
Assuming a diamond jacket would be enough to hold the pressure (which itself would need to be enclosed in a coolant pipe to keep the temperature -70C) how would end point connectors work? unless the ends of the jacket are likewise sealed the material will explode out of either end of the pipe. Conductive filaments would need to be threaded through diamond caps without introducing too much of a flaw. Still it's very cool though and like you say uses for non-power transmission like smaller MRI machines and maybe even fusion reactors seem likely.
Possibility one would be a traditional conductor contact that plugged the diamond, but this might eventually leak.
Possibility two has the potential of killing two birds with one stone, and that would be to dope part of the diamond matrix to make a carbon semiconductor out of it. The same dopant might also contribute to pre-stressing the diamond matrix which might be useful, or might be counterproductive.
Possibility three? beamed power, and have the whole superconducting machine embedded in the diamond without contacts, in the manner of a pet chip or other RFID. Feed it light or radio, and communicate with it the same way.
Possibility four? fluctuate the temperature of the coolant, and incorporate a heat engine into the design. This would be very low power transfer, however, but I could see it working. A similar concept would be how some desert civilizations would put out water at night, to have ice for the day. Or how a pulse jet works with an intermittant airflow, as opposed to the other jet propulsion systems, that depend on constant airflow. When the chip is cooling off, it's generating electricity via the differential. When the chip is allowed to heat up, (within limits, of course,) even that differential is tapped to generate electricity.
Edit. Possibility five. Put a generator in it, with a counterweight, and tumble the whole package to transfer power.
Edit2. Possibility six. Magnetic flux from the outside, although this is conceptually so similar to possibility three as to be a variant.
I suspect I'll come up with more. Probably all more unlikely than the first two.
RE: New superconductor record - Cray - 10-31-2018
There are a couple of drawbacks.
First, hydrogen sulfide's requirement for 1.5 million bars of pressure, or 22.5 million pounds per square inch, is higher than the reliably achievable 8.5 million psi tensile strength of bulk diamond. You can use THICK diamond to handle the pressure, but it's a non-ideal, brittle container. Unfortunately, there aren't better options in the current materials tool kit.
Second, such a highly pressurized material is a bomb waiting for a crack or flaw or mean look to hit it.
Third, with current artificial diamond technology and pressurization techniques, this would be a very expensive superconductor to implement. Comparatively, superconductors that require liquid nitrogen would be vastly cheaper and use established technology. I work with labs that use liquid nitrogen daily in room temperature environments. Liquid nitrogen is CHEAP, cheaper than bottled water or gasoline, and vacuum jackets aren't much pricier thanks to Yeti.