Scientists are pioneering new material designs that may bring the dream of room-temperature superconductivity closer to reality.
Superconductors typically require extremely low temperatures to function, but these new designs could operate at much higher, even ambient, temperatures, significantly broadening their practical applications.
Pioneering Materials for Room-Temperature Superconductivity
New materials designed by a University of Illinois Chicago graduate student may help scientists meet one of today’s biggest challenges: building superconductors that operate at normal temperatures and pressures.
Superconductors are used widely in everyday applications from MRI machines to power transmission. But to work, they must be cooled to extremely low temperatures, which limits their potential. Scientists worldwide are pursuing materials that could show superconductivity at “very high” temperatures — in this context, closer to room temperature — without requiring super-cooling.
Promising New Designs for Superconductors
In a paper for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Adam Denchfield and a team of UIC scientists proposed three promising new designs for superconducting materials. In computer simulations, the designs demonstrate some of the properties needed for very high-temperature superconductivity.
Hyowon Park, associate professor of physics, and Russell Hemley, professor of physics and chemistry, co-authored the paper with Denchfield, a PhD candidate in physics at UIC.
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