Researchers Discover Graphene Is A Superconductor •March 7, 2018

Superconductors are practically the holy grail of electrical engineering. Unlike regular copper or gold conductors that usually transmit electricity, superconductors can do it without any resistance. This means that running a current through a superconductor won’t produce any heat or lose any electricity, which would dramatically increase the efficiency of any computer—or any thing—built with superconductors.

Some superconductors have been discovered in the past, but they only work at temperatures close to absolute zero. The most successful superconductors are a class of material called cuprates, and scientists have managed to find superconducting cuprates that work at around 300 degrees above absolute zero, which is still about 200 degrees below the freezing point of water.

The dream for superconductor researchers is to find a material that works as a superconductor at room temperatures. That way, using superconductors woudn’t require complex and expensive cooling systems. However, finding such a superconductor is easier said than done, and very little progress has been made on that front for about 25 years.

However, new research from a group of scientists at MIT might change that. The researchers were experimenting with graphene, a next-generation material that has many unique properties. Graphene is a two-dimensional material made of carbon atoms, and over the past several years scientists have discovered that graphene is incredibly strong and conducts heat and electricity remarkably well.

The MIT researchers discovered that graphene has another remarkable property: When cooled to nearly absolute zero, two sheets of graphene sandwiched together and offset by exactly 1.1 degrees becomes a superconductor. This was a surprise even to the researchers themselves, who were simply examining what kinds of effects that angle might have.

This discovery that graphene is capable of superconductivity opens up a new avenue of research for superconductor scientists. Graphene is easier to understand than complex cuprites, and the researchers believe there’s a good chance that this could be the key to finally finding a superconductor that works closer to room temperature.

We’re still a long way from a true room-temperature superconductor, but this is a good sign that such a thing is achievable. Maybe we’ll be able to see a superconducting graphene computer within our lifetimes.

A group of scientists have turned graphene into a superconductor, capable of carrying electricity with no resistance. The secret involved sandwiching two layers of graphene together and offsetting them by a ‘magic angle.’ This discovery could help scientists trying to develop superconductors that work at room temperatures.