Future Nobel Prize in the making?:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-simulating-strongly-fermions-door-superconductor.html

Sounds like Nobel level material here.

I didn't realize just how subtle and weird the properties of superconductors are until I saw this video:

YouTube

you have to look at the part from 2:51 to 5:17 before you see what I mean.

Thanks for the link, I have read the Nature Physics article that is mentioned in the link. Interesting stuff, though I wouldn't immediately say this is Nobel Prize material (and apparently the editor of Nature agreed, otherwise this would be a Nature paper for sure, instead of a Nature Physics article).

Originally posted by humy
I didn't realize just how subtle and weird the properties of superconductors are until I saw this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4XEQVnIFmQ

you have to look at the part from 2:51 to 5:17 before you see what I mean.

That is proper cool! I had seen a video of this being demoed at some science event and wasn't sure if it was some kind of elaborate spoof. But this really does look real.

--- Penguin

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142033.htm

and

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/a-final-answer-on-how-high-tempe.html

Don't know how significant that is in helping us to understand how high-temperature superconductors work.
It basically suggests that phonons have little to do with it.

I have some questions:

As far as I am aware, all reasonably high-temperture superconductors have at least one heavy chemical element ( and usually a rare one )
But why?
Does a high-temperture superconductor generally require a heavy chemical element ( lets here define a “heavy element” as one with an atomic mass greater than that of iron ) or does having a heavy chemical element makes it more likely to work and, if either of those things are so, why so?
Is there any special reason why a heavy element can increase the maximum temperature of the superconductivity? And, if so, why?

-I tried Googling this but got nowhere.

Originally posted by humy
I have some questions:

As far as I am aware, all reasonably high-temperture superconductors have at least one heavy chemical element ( and usually a rare one )
But why?
Does a high-temperture superconductor generally require a heavy chemical element ( lets here define a “heavy element” as one with an atomic mass greater than that of iron ) or does having a ...[text shortened]... emperature of the superconductivity? And, if so, why?

-I tried Googling this but got nowhere.

Given that nobody has yet produced a general theory of superconductivity (and duly won the Nobel
prize for physics) I think the answer to the question for the moment is going to be we don't know.

However I would speculate that 'heavy' elements are useful as they have lots of loosely bound outer
electrons which might make forming the frictionless quantum electron fluid needed for superconductivity
easier.