Hints of a new superconductor champion.Hints of a new superconductor champion By combining thallium thallium (thăl`ēəm), metallic chemical element; symbol Tl; at. no. 81; at. wt. 204.383; m.p. 303.5°C;; b.p. about 1,457°C;; sp. gr. 11.85 at 20°C;; valence +1 or +3. , strontium, vanadium vanadium (vənā`dēəm), metallic chemical element; symbol V; at. no. 23; at. wt. 50.9415; m.p. about 1,890°C;; b.p. 3,380°C;; sp. gr. about 6 at 20°C;; valence +2, +3, +4, or +5. Vanadium is a soft, ductile, silver-grey metal. and oxygen, Shin-Pei Matsuda and co-workers at the Superconductivity Research Group of Hitachi, Ltd., in Ibaraki, Japan, have cooked up a new ceramic material that they claim becomes superconducting at a record high temperature of 130 kelvins. The previous record holder for a high-temperature superconductor -- a compound of thallium, barium, calcium, copper, and oxygen -- shed all resistance at 122 K. Though the Hitachi results are preliminary, "you have to take them seriously," notes physicist Mildred S. Dresselhaus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, in Cambridge. Because copper has played prominent roles in previous high-temperature superconductors, she said its absence in the new compound may yield clues explaining these materials' tantalizing tan·ta·lize tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es To excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. and still mysterious properties. |
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