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Superconductors : cables of the future ?
At very low temperatures, some materials offer no resistance to the passage of electric current : they are the superconductors. Superconducting cables thus transport electrical energy without any loss. Since these cables must be maintained at very low temperatures (around -200°C), their domestic use is not feasible. However, they could be extremely useful for power grids that transport high loads in dense urban areas. A first conclusive full-scale test took place in Long Island in 2010. They are also used in many fields, for example in medical MRI.
To improve these materials and understand the origin of superconductivity, several teams of chemists and physicists are working together to try and design new superconductors and understand how they work. The discovery in 1986 of superconductivity at surprisingly high temperatures in copper oxide-based ceramics - the cuprates - paved the way for high hopes. In 2008, the discovery of pnictides, iron-arsenic based materials, offered yet further possibilities.
The CNRS laboratories are very active in this field of research. Teams of chemists specialised in solid-state chemistry are trying to develop new material syntheses and to improve existing compounds. Teams of physicists then measure their properties, sometimes in extreme conditions, at very low temperatures, in very strong magnetic fields, under high pressure, or with advanced instruments able to measure down to atomic scale, or even in synchrotron radiations. Based on these measurements, many theorists are trying to invent new models that will help understand the origin of superconductivity. Finally, several laboratories are developing devices to use these superconductors, for example in electronics or nanophysics.
One hundred years after its discovery, superconductivity is one of the most active areas of research, at the interface between chemistry and physics, both fundamental and applied.
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