The article discusses the search for superconductivity, a highly sought-after property in materials science. Copper has long been considered a potential candidate for room-temperature superconductivity, and the author suggests that nickel-based materials might be the next-best place to look.
The key insight is that nickel and copper, despite their differences in physical properties, share a common characteristic known as the Fermi surface, which should give them similar electronic properties. This suggests that nickel-based compounds may also exhibit superconductivity, like copper.
The article then presents evidence from a study by Zhu et al., which found signs of superconductivity in a nickel-based compound, but only under extreme conditions of very high pressure (almost 700,000 times ambient pressure) and low temperature (10 times cooler than room temperature). This indicates that while nickel-based materials may be promising, achieving room-temperature superconductivity in these compounds remains a significant challenge.
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by Weiwei Xie at www.nature.com 07-17-2024
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02232-9Deeper Inquiries