By: Seoyun Kim
Levitating trains, quantum computers, and running GTA 6 on a ten-year-old HP laptop can all be achieved with the power of superconductors. Every object at room temperature has some form of electrical resistance, resulting in a loss of energy. But nearly a century ago, materials have been discovered which have the ability to transfer energy without losing any energy when cooled below a critical temperature. They are called superconductors, and even though they were fascinating for their time, they weren't of much use. It wasn't until physicists at the University of Illinois found new superconductive materials such as titanium that could be made into wires. Using these superconductive wires, they were able to make extremely powerful magnets that are now being used in MRI machines today. Now, while the inventions of superconductive technology have come from Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, there is a way of using superconductors that can potentially become groundbreaking. Superconductors have always needed to be cooled at liquid nitrogen temperatures (-321°F), but scientists have recently found new substances with superconductivity above those temperatures. Materials such as yttrium-barium-copper oxide and other copper oxide compounds have shown promising results as high-temperature superconductors. A new substance called LK-99 has also shown signs of being a room-temperature superconductor. While there is much debate, controversy, and debunking of the compounds, it still brings us hope that we might be able to have superconductors at "normal temperatures." Imagine having a superconductor in every one of your electrical appliances. Phones would work faster than the most expensive computer on the market, powerful electrical grids with no energy loss—essentially, every electrical device would become much more efficient. But achieving this will take many scientific hurdles to overcome. Since most of our high-temperature superconductors are ceramic, using them in wires or magnets isn't very practical. However, given time and effort, I'm sure we'll have a breakthrough one day, and maybe we'll be able to have quantum computers in the safety of our own homes.
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