Skip to main content

Discovery of new superconducting materials using materials informatics

Discovery of new superconducting materials using materials

 informatics :


Superconductor search process concept: Candidate materials are selected from a database by means of calculation and subjected to high pressure to determine their superconducting properties.

A NIMS-Ehime University joint research team succeeded in discovering new materials that exhibit superconductivity under high pressures using materials informatics (MI) approaches (data science-based material search techniques). This study experimentally demonstrated that MI enables efficient exploration of new superconducting materials. MI approaches may be applicable to the development of various functional materials, including superconductors.
Superconducting materials which enable long-distance electricity transmission without energy loss in the absence of electrical resistance?are considered to be a key technology in solving environmental and energy issues. The conventional approach by researchers searching for new superconducting materials or other materials has been to rely on published information on material properties, such as crystalline structures and valence numbers, and their own experience and intuition. However, this approach is time-consuming, costly and very difficult because it requires extensive and exhaustive synthesis of related materials. As such, demand has been high for the development of new methods enabling more efficient exploration of new materials with desirable properties.
This joint research team took advantage of the AtomWork database, which contains more than 100,000 pieces of data on inorganic crystal structures. The team first selected approximately 1,500 candidate material groups whose electronic states could be determined through calculation. The team then narrowed this list to 27 materials with desirable superconducting properties by actually performing electronic state calculations. From these 27, two materials?SnBi2Se4 and PbBi2Te4?were ultimately chosen because they were relatively easy to synthesize.
The team synthesized these two materials and confirmed that they exhibit superconductivity under high pressures using an electrical resistivity measuring device. The team also found that the superconducting transition temperatures of these materials increase with increasing pressure. This data science-based approach, which is completely different from the conventional approaches, enabled identification and efficient and precise development of superconducting materials.
Experiments revealed that these newly discovered materials may have superb thermoelectric properties in addition to superconductivity. The method we developed may be applicable to the development of various functional materials, including superconductors. In future studies, we hope to discover innovative functional materials, such as room-temperature superconducting materials, by including a wider range of materials in our studies and increasing the accuracy of the parameters relevant to desirable properties.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dark matter may be older than the Big Bang

Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang. The study, published August 7 in  Physical Review Letters , presents a new idea of how dark matter was born and how to identify it with astronomical observations. "The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too," says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study's author. While not much is known about its origins,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Home births as safe as hospital births: International study suggests

A large international study led by McMaster University shows that low risk pregnant women who intend to give birth at home have no increased chance of the baby's perinatal or neonatal death compared to other low risk women who intend to give birth in a hospital. The results have been published by  The Lancet 's  EClinicalMedicine  journal. "More women in well-resourced countries are choosing birth at home, but concerns have persisted about their safety," said Eileen Hutton, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster, founding director of the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre and first author of the paper. "This research clearly demonstrates the risk is no different when the birth is intended to be at home or in hospital." The study examined the safety of place of birth by reporting on the risk of death at the time of birth or within the first four weeks, and found no clinically important or statistically different risk between home...
Post a Comment
Read more

GSAT-11 satellite to be launched from French Guiana on Dec 5th

GSAT-11 satellite to be launched from French Guiana on Dec 5th GSAT-11 would be located at 74 East and is the fore-runner in a series of advanced communications satellite with multi-spot beam antenna coverage over Indian mainland and Islands, ISRO said. GSAT-11 is the next generation “high throughput” communication satellite configured around ISRO’s I-6K Bus. (PTI/Representational). Indian space agency ISRO is scheduled to launch GSAT-11, the “heaviest” satellite built by it, on-board Ariane-5 rocket of Arianespace from French Guiana on December 5. Weighing about 5,854 kg, GSAT-11 would play a vital role in providing broadband services across the country, and also provide a platform to demonstrate new generation applications, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said. It is the “heaviest” satellite built by ISRO, the space agency said. GSAT-11 is the next generation “high throughput” communication satellite configured around ISRO’s  I-6K Bus, and it...
Post a Comment
Read more