U.S. scientists create new form of matter
Finding could lead to better superconductors
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Posted: 7:06 PM EST (0006 GMT)


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Scientists said on Wednesday they had created a new form of matter and predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications.

The new matter form is called a fermionic condensate and it is the sixth known form of matter -- after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995.

"What we've done is create this new exotic form of matter," Deborah Jin, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's joint lab with the University of Colorado, who led the study, told a news conference.

"It is a scientific breakthrough in providing a new type of quantum mechanical behavior," added Jin.

Jin and her colleagues' cloud of supercooled potassium atoms is one step closer to an everyday, usable superconductor -- a material that conducts electricity without losing any of its energy.

"It is related to a Bose-Einstein condensate," Jin said. "It's not a superconductor but it is really something in between these two that may help us in science link these two interesting behaviors."

And other researchers may find practical applications.

"If you had a superconductor you could transmit electricity with no losses," Jin said. "Right now something like 10 percent of all electricity we produce in the United States is lost. It heats up wires. It doesn't do anybody any good."

Or superconductors could allow for the invention of magnetically levitated trains, she added. Free of friction they could glide along at high speeds using a fraction of the energy trains now use.

Jin, a recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," was building on the discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate by her colleagues Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman. They won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.

Bose-Einstein condensates are collections of thousands of ultracold particles that occupy a single quantum state -- they all essentially behave like a single, huge superatom.

But Jin says these Bose-Einstein condensates are made with bosons, which like to act in unison.

"Bosons are copycats. They basically want to do what everyone else is doing," she said.

Her team's new form of matter uses fermions -- the everyday building blocks of matter that include protons, electrons and neutrons.

"They are not copycats," Jin said. "Fermions are your independent thinkers -- they don't copy their neighbors."

But Jin's team coaxed them into doing just that.

They cooled potassium gas to a billionth of a degree Celsius above absolute zero or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit -- which is the point at which matter stops moving.

They confined the gas in a vacuum chamber and used magnetic fields and laser light to manipulate the potassium atoms into pairing up.

"This is very similar to what happens to electrons in a superconductor," Jin said.

This is more likely to provide applications in the practical world than a Bose-Einstein condensate, she said, because fermions are what make up solid matter.

Bosons, in contrast, are seen in photons, and subatomic particles called W and Z particles.

Jin stressed her team worked with a supercooled gas, which provides little opportunity for everyday application. But the way the potassium atoms acted suggested there should be a way to translate the behavior into a room-temperature solid.

"Our atoms are more strongly attracted to one another than in normal superconductors," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/scienc...reut/index.html

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Retro ...

One of many reasons I regret not having majored in Physics. Cool article--thanks Occ.

I'd be damn surprised if superconductor research is given anymore money above what it's current grant levels are right now. Who knows. Here's to wishful thinking.

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quote:

Bosons, in contrast, are seen in photons, and subatomic particles called W and Z particles.

Eh? Photons are made of bosons???

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I wish i understood something of physics. Unfortunately, when it comes to that matter, my brain seems to switch off, leaving me completely in the dark (i had to drop physics in school because i just couldn't complete it)

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but this seems to me like just another example of wishful thinking in superconductor research.

i.e. "Wow, it conducts great at negative ten billion degrees! Now if we could only get it to work at realistic temperatures..."

It's the last quote that bothers me, really:

quote:

Jin stressed her team worked with a supercooled gas, which provides little opportunity for everyday application. But the way the potassium atoms acted suggested there should be a way to translate the behavior into a room-temperature solid.

That's pretty much the failing point of ALL past semiconductor research - yes, there SHOULD be a way to translate it into a room-temperature solid, but that's the one thing that nobody seems to have been able to do for any of the research that's taken place. People keep doing more and more research at ridiculously low temperatures, but I don't see how that's really helping anyone.

It's interesting, though, I guess. Assuming they can make any further progress. Have they really created another state of matter? Reading the article left me thinking that it was just a transition state between two known states.

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quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Maybe I'm just being cynical, but this seems to me like just another example of wishful thinking in superconductor research. i.e. "Wow, it conducts great at negative ten billion degrees! Now if we could only get it to work at realistic temperatures..." It's the last quote that bothers me, really: That's pretty much the failing point of ALL past semiconductor research - yes, there SHOULD be a way to translate it into a room-temperature solid, but that's the one thing that nobody seems to have been able to do for any of the research that's taken place. People keep doing more and more research at ridiculously low temperatures, but I don't see how that's really helping anyone. It's interesting, though, I guess. Assuming they can make any further progress. Have they really created another state of matter? Reading the article left me thinking that it was just a transition state between two known states.

Well I admit that perhaps I erred in referring to a CNN article to explain the benefits of the discovery. I figured that most would not care, except perhaps Tito, so I resorted to a headline grabber. Here's a more physics oriented examination of the implications of the experiement.

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-56/...2no10p17-18.pdf

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Retro ...

Fermions are your independent thinkers, like Civil Libertarians on small doses of DMT. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, just goad me because of my theoretics.

http://www.farcaster.com/sterling/part4.htm

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quote:

"Learn, child, to catch a hint through whatever agency it may be given. 'Sermons may be preached through stones." - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, first series, p. 74, letter 31

Linky

Well, not that I believe it, but here's a company that not only says that room-temperature superconductors are possible, they have them and are preparing to market them. I would have thought they would have made a bigger splash onto the scene if they truley did have room-temp superconductors, but I guess only time will tell.

Linky2

Well, I guess somebody was gullible enough to buy a whole bunch of "ultraconductors." LOL


If anyone can find any more recent articles about this company, let me know.

quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono Linky Well, not that I believe it, but here's a company that not only says that room-temperature superconductors are possible, they have them and are preparing to market them. I would have thought they would have made a bigger splash onto the scene if they truley did have room-temp superconductors, but I guess only time will tell. Linky2 Well, I guess somebody was gullible enough to buy a whole bunch of "ultraconductors." LOL If anyone can find any more recent articles about this company, let me know.

hehe ya funny, wired is a great magazine, but i wouldnt hold my breath on that company - after all that article was written in July 1998

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quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono Linky Well, not that I believe it, but here's a company that not only says that room-temperature superconductors are possible, they have them and are preparing to market them. I would have thought they would have made a bigger splash onto the scene if they truley did have room-temp superconductors, but I guess only time will tell.

Hehe, just yesterday one croatian newspapers had a big title "Croatian physics professor discovers room-temperature superconductor!". For some reason it's really popular here to announce that a local physicist discovered a room-temperature superconductor at least once per year.

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