Room-temperature superconductor

A room-temperature superconductor is a material yet to be discovered which would be capable of exhibiting superconducting properties at operating temperatures above 0° C (273.15 K). This is not strictly speaking "room temperature" (approx. 20–25°C), but it can be reached cheaply.

Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductors, several materials have been claimed to be room-temperature superconductors. In every case, independent investigation has quickly proven these claims false. As a result, most condensed matter physicists now treat with extreme skepticism any further claims of this nature. Superconduction at room temperature has been discovered already in 2000 by J F Prins within a phase formed by electrons within a vacuum. No independent investigation has so far proved these results wrong. Until that time it must be accepted that superconduction at room temperature has been established.

In 2008 a Canadian-German team reported the discovery of superconductivity when silane (SiH₄) was compressed to a solid at high pressure. Silane was unfortunately not a room-temperature superconductor; an EE Times article grossly exaggerated this achievement and claimed that room-temperature superconductivity had been achieved. In reality, the transition temperature was 17 K at 96 and 120 GPa.

In 2003 a group of researchers published results on high temperature superconductivity in PdH. In 2007 the same group published a superconducting transition temperature of 260K. Superconductivity of PdH is related to the density of hydrogen inside the palladium lattice. The superconducting critical temperature increases as hydrogen density increases.

External links

• http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0606187 - a book
• http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0704.2188 - a chapter