The Quest for the Most Elusive Material in Physics
Pieces of a diamond anvil cell.Photo: Ryan F. Mandelbaum (Gizmodo)
Superconductors haven’t seen widespread commercial applications due to their cost, the effort required to produce them, and perhaps reluctance by old-school companies to adopt such a radically new material, reports IEEE Spectrum. Physicist Neil Ashcroft realized in 1970 that this metallic hydrogen might be a high-temperature superconductor and, later, that materials containing mostly hydrogen plus another element mixed in, called hydrides, might also be high-temperature superconductors. Then in 2014, a team led by Russian physicist Mikhail Eremets would blow the field open by demonstrating superconductivity at temperatures a few hundred degrees above absolute zero by compressing hydrogen sulfide gas.
Source: gizmodo.com