Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. GPS News .




ENERGY TECH
Binghamton physicist contributes to creation of first computer-designed superconductor
by Staff Writers
Binghamton NY (SPX) Oct 18, 2013


Kolmogorov and his international colleagues report this week on the successful synthesis of the first superconductor designed entirely on the computer. Credit: Jonathan Cohen, Binghamton University Photographer.

A Binghamton University scientist and his international colleagues report this week on the successful synthesis of the first superconductor designed entirely on the computer. Their findings were published in Physical Review Letters, the leading journal in the field.

Aleksey Kolmogorov, assistant professor of physics at Binghamton, proposed the new superconductor in Physical Review Letters in 2010 and then teamed up with European experimentalists to test the prediction.

The synthesized material - a novel iron tetraboride compound - is made of two common elements, has a brand-new crystal structure and exhibits an unexpected type of superconductivity for a material that contains iron, just as predicted in the original computational study.

"Paradigm-shifting superconducting materials have so far been discovered experimentally, and oftentimes accidentally," Kolmogorov says.

Until now, theory has been used primarily to investigate superconducting mechanisms and, in rare cases, suggest ways that existing materials might be modified to become superconductors. But many proposed superconducting materials are not stable enough to form and those that do form are poor superconductors.

Superconductors, which conduct electric current without any resistance when cooled below a certain temperature, have many interesting applications. For instance, power lines made out of superconducting materials can significantly reduce the energy lost in transmission.

The phenomenon was discovered more than 100 years ago, with breakthroughs in the 1960s bringing superconductivity into practical application. The critical temperature, or Tc, for superconductors discovered to date is between 0 and 136 Kelvin (-460 and -214 degrees Fahrenheit). Scientists are still searching for materials that are superconductors at higher temperatures and can be mass-produced.

Several years ago, Kolmogorov, then at Oxford University, began studying boron-based materials, which have complex structures and a wide range of applications. He developed an automated computational tool to identify previously unknown stable crystal structures. His "evolutionary" algorithm emulates nature, meaning it favors more stable materials among thousands of possibilities.

The search revealed two promising compounds in a common iron-boron system, which came as a surprise. Moreover, a graduate student's calculations indicated that one of them should be a superconductor at an unusually high temperature of 15-20 Kelvin for the considered (so-called "conventional") type of superconductivity.

Months of double-checking confirmed the preliminary results on the stability and superconductivity of the compound. Still, the 2010 theoretical discovery was met with skepticism.

Natalia Dubrovinskaia and Leonid Dubrovinsky, professors at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, undertook a series of experiments and produced a very small quantity of iron tetraboride in the predicted crystal structure, leading to the latest article. Detailed measurements demonstrated the material's predicted superconducting property and, unexpectedly, its exceptional hardness.

"The discovery of this superhard superconductor demonstrates that new compounds can be brought into existence by revisiting seemingly well-studied systems," Kolmogorov says. Now that this material has been synthesized, it may be possible to modify it and raise the temperature at which it becomes a superconductor.

.


Related Links
Binghamton University
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








ENERGY TECH
American DG Energy to Provide Greener On-Site Utility Systems
Waltham MA (SPX) Oct 18, 2013
American DG Energy has announced that its primary supplier of equipment was recently awarded a patent for lower emissions on all of their combined heat and power (CHP) and chiller systems. American DG Energy will be able to offer both its existing and new On-Site Utility customers tighter emission controls to further reduce CO and NOx emissions on its Tecogen products. This will prov ... read more


ENERGY TECH
Urban soil quality and compost

Paraguay's Cartes vetoes grain export tax

Unregulated, agricultural ammonia threatens national parks' ecology

Badgers ultimately responsible for around half of TB in cattle

ENERGY TECH
CU, MIT breakthrough in photonics could allow for faster and faster electronics

Researchers demonstrate 'accelerator on a chip'

Spirals of Light May Lead to Better Electronics

Promising new alloy for resistive switching memory

ENERGY TECH
EU revives airline carbon tax proposal

In Israel, lingering bitterness over a failed fighter project

Brazil aims to build advanced fighter jets with Russia

Northrop Grumman to Upgrade French Navy E-2C Hawkeye Fleet

ENERGY TECH
Beijing to impose odd-even car ban in heavy pollution

GM to launch dual-fuel car in 2014

Safety of in-car WiFi proposal questioned by researchers

Anger over German stance on auto CO2 emissions

ENERGY TECH
Foreign investment in China up 6.2% in first nine months

Fast and malodorous: Bangkok's "khlong" boat network

Australia to keep Japan and China as partners: Bishop

Russia's Nord Gold wins license for Siberian gold field

ENERGY TECH
Climate change creates complicated consequences for North America's forests

Massive spruce beetle outbreak in Colorado tied to drought

Historic trends predict future global reforestation unlikely

Forests most likely to continue shrinking

ENERGY TECH
Astrium Enhances TerraSAR-X Resolution and Coverage Capabilities

Iron in the Earth's core weakens before melting

DroneMetrex Accomplishes Another Mapping Project Using Its Unique Topodrone-100

Flood maps from satellite data can help emergency response

ENERGY TECH
Densest array of carbon nanotubes grown to date

Nanoscale neuronal activity measured for the first time

Container's material properties affect the viscosity of water at the nanoscale

Molecules pass through nanotubes at size-dependent speeds




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement