For decades now, there have been a select few achievements scientists have been working toward that are often referred to as the ‘holy grail' of their respective fields. For clean energy production, this would be Nuclear Fusion – the same process that powers the Sun and could provide us with near-limitless energy devoid of harmful emissions. For material science, it is a room-temperature, ambient-pressure (RT-AP) superconductor.
Such a development would provide the means to transmit power with essentially no energy loss, transforming our power grids and enabling massive leaps forward with regard to electronics and computing. For this reason, in mid-2023, the world was on the edge of its seat when news broke that a substance known as LK-99, which was claimed to act as an RT-AP superconductor, had been discovered. While further investigation showed that this was not actually the case, scientists have not been dissuaded from discovering the real thing.
With that in mind, a recent paper published in Advanced Quantum Technologies by a group of researchers affiliated with Swiss-based Terra Quantum may have made progress on this front stating,
“We have reported the first-ever observation of the global room-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure.”
The material in question that reportedly fits this description is known as Pyrolytic Graphite.
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