How Close Are We to the Holy Grail of Room-Temperature Superconductors?

Re:How Close Are We to the Holy Grail of Room-Temperature Su... by nullc on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:53AM (#35591117)

huh? we have LN2 temperature superconductors. In this clip I show flux pinning in YBCO, cooled by LN2 on my dining room table: http://nt4tn.net/random/superconductor.mp4

There are many limits in current HTS-- like it's hard to build coils out of brittle ceramics-- so having alternatives would be very useful, so perhaps that's what you meant?

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Re:How Close Are We to the Holy Grail of Room-Temperature Su... by analog31 on Sunday April 16, 2023 @03:28PM (#35593453)

Yes. Practical magnets. But still, I'll check out your link at intermission. ;-)

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Re:How Close Are We to the Holy Grail of Room-Temperature Su... by nullc on Sunday April 16, 2023 @04:45PM (#35594103)

I wonder how much RTS research could be expected to produce better materials for making electromagnets.

Even Niobium-tin only gets there via clever manufacturing techniques (e.g. the internal-tin process; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niobium%E2%80%93tin#Niobium_ti... ).

Is ductile HTS a major research target too, or even believed to be possible? Or is the hope that by studying RTS' we'll stumble into something that can be manufactured by chance or gain some deeper understanding of their behavior that let us design more useful materials? It seems the media spills the most ink on room temp but I agree than LN2 temp but able to be formed would be more important-- I think if YBCO worked at -70C it still would not see that much commercial use.

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