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Navy files for patent on room-temperature superconductor
A scientist working for the U.S. Navy has filed for a patent on a room-temperature superconductor, representing a potential paradigm shift in energy transmission and computer systems.
Salvatore Cezar Pais is listed as the inventor on the Navy's patent application made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday.
The application claims that a room-temperature superconductor can be built using a wire with an insulator core and an aluminum PZT (lead zirconate titanate) coating deposited by vacuum evaporation with a thickness of the London penetration depth and polarized after deposition.
An electromagnetic coil is circumferentially positioned around the coating such that when the coil is activated with a pulsed current, a non-linear vibration is induced, enabling room temperature superconductivity.
"This concept enables the transmission of electrical power without any losses and exhibits optimal thermal management (no heat dissipation)," according to the patent document, "which leads to the design and development of novel energy generation and harvesting devices with enormous benefits to civilization."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @07:50PM
We can already create magnets of any size, shape and length. Both permanent magnets and electromagnets. This is how those wierd magnetic toys work and they are how maglev trains work. Mag-lev tracks are essentially a large electric motor that has been flattened, i.e. an electro-magnet.
What makes superconductors and other "supers" like super fluids and Bose Einstein Condensates, exciting is that they exhibit quantum mechanical states & effects observable at the macro level.
We can ask all kinds of questions about what happens in the quantum world and find an analog in these exotic states, and in most cases this teaches us to ask better questions.
But the fact is superconductors have a specific definition. This invention could not possibly meet it. It would actually be far MORE exciting if instead of pretending this were a super conductor, that they would instead call it a high efficiency conductor.
After all, this thing is physically realizable today using construction techniques we have right now. You could build this yourself with the right supplies and a vapor deposition chamber.
By the looks of it, it would work well as a long distance transmission line assuming the losses are less than current materials and construction techniques. Those reduced losses translate into lower long term costs for the power companies because they are losing as much as 5% of their energy output per mile at the moment. If this could reduce that loss to even 4% per mile, it would mean millions saved in the span of a couple of years. That translates to lower energy costs for all of us.