A group of Taiwanese physicists said on Thursday they had discovered a new kind of iron-based superconductor that has no toxic ingredients and is easier to manipulate.
Currently, the iron-based compound — dubbed “PbO type structure alpha-FeSe” — can reach superconductive status at a temperature of 30 Kelvin (minus 243.15˚C), said Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆), a research fellow at Academia Sinica in Taipei.
“Further research and improvement will be able to fully reveal the potential of this iron-based superconductor,” said Wu, who conducted the project along with other members of Academia Sinica, National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Superconductivity is a physical phenomenon in which certain materials, when cooled to very low temperatures such as zero Kelvin, develop superconductivity, offering zero resistance to electrical currents and the exclusion of interior magnetic fields.
Everyday applications of the superconductive technology include maglev trains and MRI/NMR machines. However, such machines have to be kept at very low temperatures to operate.
Scientists have long been seeking to create a substance that can gain superconductivity at 0˚C or above to allow even wider applications of the technology, such as zero-loss electrical wires.
Meanwhile, a long-existing hypothesis about superconductors is that only substances that are anti-ferromagnetic in nature can be transformed into superconductors, such as copper-based cuperates — the most common superconductive material.
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology, however, have proven that iron-based “Fe oxypnictide” can also develop superconductivity regardless of the existence of iron — an element that usually carries ferromagnetism. After refinement, Fe oxypnictide can gain superconductivity at about 60 Kelvin, compared to the original transition temperature of 26 Kelvin.
Wu said the Japanese project, led by Hideo Hosono, paved a new path to superconductivity research for two reasons.
“First, even though scientists have never given up their efforts to raise the transition temperature of copper-based superconductors, copper-based materials can seldom develop superconductivity above 138 Kelvin,” Wu said.
“Second, iron is more accessible than copper, in terms of global reserves,” Wu said, adding that if iron-based superconductors can be improved, they could be the key to realizing moderate-temperature superconductors.
However, Wu explained, the Hosono team’s superconductor contains arsenic, a toxic element, and its chemical characteristics are harder to manipulate under laboratory conditions.
“What we have found is a superconductor that is both non-toxic and easy to handle,” Wu said.
A scientific report on the new compound was published on Sept. 5 in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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