LK-99 Room Temp Ambient Pressure Superconductor

[kerbiloid]

A hot cuperconductor = a gauss gun, a plasmagun.

That easily available to everyone? And no men in black in the office?

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A hot cuperconductor = a gauss gun, a plasmagun.

That easily available to everyone? And no men in black in the office?

The problem with rail guns is the rails surviving and not turning into plasma, so maybe

[Jacke]

On 8/16/2023 at 4:53 AM, kerbiloid said:

A hot cuperconductor = a gauss gun, a plasmagun.

That easily available to everyone? And no men in black in the office?

Except when you hit the limits of the superconductor and it stops being a superconductor.

[steve9728]

Science: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery

It is not a superconductor or even a conductor, but an insulator.

I think this is over, really solidly. Decades later (or maybe more) if mankind really finds something room-temp superconductor, LK-99 may not make it into the textbooks, but it will certainly be attached as a footnote. At least, as a "fun fact".

Edited August 18, 2023 by steve9728

[magnemoe]

On 8/16/2023 at 6:53 AM, kerbiloid said:

A hot cuperconductor = a gauss gun, a plasmagun.

That easily available to everyone? And no men in black in the office?

Depends on how much charge you can hold. Gauss guns are real forgotten weapons tested it, it used capacitors to store the charge you wil use for the magnets. 
You want to switch the magnets on to accelerate the projectile forward. It looks more promising for moving heavy stuff like trains or carrier catapults. 
Yes you could probably use it to get cruise missiles airborne but then you need an loading system rater than stacks or launch tubes. 
 

[darthgently]

25 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Depends on how much charge you can hold. Gauss guns are real forgotten weapons tested it, it used capacitors to store the charge you wil use for the magnets. 
You want to switch the magnets on to accelerate the projectile forward. It looks more promising for moving heavy stuff like trains or carrier catapults. 
Yes you could probably use it to get cruise missiles airborne but then you need an loading system rater than stacks or launch tubes. 
 

There is an outfit looking to use the quenching of superconducting magnets in a gauss gun config to put a small payload stage to orbital altitude where a normal upper stage would raise periapsis.  The payload stage would need a heat shield on the bow if used from Earth.  But use case for company is Moon and Mars.  I want to say I heard about this from a Fraser Cain youtube channel interview with the CEO, but it's fuzzy now

[KSK]

2 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Science: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery

It is not a superconductor or even a conductor, but an insulator.

I think this is over, really solidly. Decades later (or maybe more) if mankind really finds something room-temp superconductor, LK-99 may not make it into the textbooks, but it will certainly be attached as a footnote. At least, as a "fun fact".

Yeah, that article sounded fairly convincing to me,  especially because both the observed levitation and observed resistance drop could be explained.  Still interesting that an impurity could have such a dramatic effect though.

Harking back to my previous post, the actual formula for pure LK-99 turned out to be Pb_8.8Cu_1.2P₆O₂

Oh well - back to the cryostats.

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 8/18/2023 at 3:10 PM, KSK said:

interesting that an impurity could have such a dramatic effect though

Doesn't that open a path for exploration?

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Doesn't that open a path for exploration?

Thought the same, its how semiconductors works after all. 

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Thought the same, its how semiconductors works after all. 

It is a special type of impurity configuration that creates a gateable nonlinear junction in a semiconductor material.  Is a semiconductor involved here?  Honest question

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

It is a special type of impurity configuration that creates a gateable nonlinear junction in a semiconductor material.  Is a semiconductor involved here?  Honest question

An good question, it seems like the material is hard to produce as in it can have many configurations so not like an semiconductor but the same in practice. 

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

An good question, it seems like the material is hard to produce as in it can have many configurations so not like an semiconductor but the same in practice. 

It is hard for me to imagine something made from lead and copper being a semiconductor but I am far from knowing what is possible there

[KSK]

9 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Doesn't that open a path for exploration?

Probably, but I would also file this on the tottering heap of ‘things I don’t really know enough about to make an informed comment’!

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, darthgently said:

It is hard for me to imagine something made from lead and copper being a semiconductor but I am far from knowing what is possible there

Well, bear in mind that AFAIK lead is the original superconductor, albeit at liquid helium temp (4K, -269C)

[darthgently]

40 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Well, bear in mind that AFAIK lead is the original superconductor, albeit at liquid helium temp (4K, -269C)

I was referring to semiconductor wrt the comment about semiconductors, not superconductors, but maybe that was a typo I was responding to.  I do gather that the big win would be a superconducting semiconductor from which logic gates could be made, but I only gather that from pop sci and some electronics background, not deep knowledge

[StrandedonEarth]

25 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I was referring to semiconductor

Whoops, I misread, or skimmed, or lazyread