Flexible superconductor developed
2 May 2017 by Evoluted New Media
Experimental physicists in Germany have developed an ultrathin, flexible nanomaterial with superconducting properties.
Experimental physicists in Germany have developed an ultrathin, flexible nanomaterial with superconducting properties.
The material is a woven fabric of plastic fibres and high-temperature superconducting nanowires. Many superconducting materials available are rigid, brittle and dense which makes them heavy – but the new superconductor is both lightweight and pliable.
Professor Uwe Hartmann, from Saarland University and leader of the research group, said: “Theoretically, the material can be made to any size. We need fewer resources than are typically required to make superconducting ceramics, so our superconducting mesh is also cheaper to fabricate.”
The researchers used electrospinning to produce the material – a technique normally used to produce polymer fibres. Dr Michael Koblischka, one of the researchers in Hartmann’s group, said: “We force a liquid material through a very fine nozzle known as a spinneret to which a high electrical voltage has been applied. This produces nanowire filaments that are a thousand times thinner than the diameter of a human hair, typically about 300 nanometres or less. We then heat the mesh of fibres so that superconductors of the right composition are created. The superconducting material itself is typically an yttrium-barium-copper-oxide or similar compound.”
Below -200°C, superconductors conduct electricity without loss, levitate magnets and can screen magnetic fields. The newly developed nanomaterial has a low weight of 0.05g/cm3 meaning it weighs about one hundred times less than a conventional superconductor.
Possible uses for the superconductor include a coating to provide low-temperature screening from electromagnetic fields, use in flexible cables or facilitating frictionless movement. A number of papers on this research have been published in the following journals:
