Good News and Bad News on the Superconducting Front

Superconductors, through which an electric current can pass without loss, have long been seen as offering great potential in such applications as transmission of electric power. The downside is that superconduction was initially found only at temperatures close to absolute zero. Years of experiment have led to demonstrations at substantially higher temperatures, but still well below room temperature - one of the goals of the research.

Now the good news: reported in this Nature article, researchers have achieved superconduction in a carbonaceous sulphur hydride system at a temperature of 15^o C.

And the bad news: this occurs at pressures between 140 to 275 gigapascals.

However, the researchers feel that "introduction of chemical tuning within our ternary system could enable the preservation of the properties of room-temperature superconductivity at lower pressures".

The Nature article is behind a paywall, so only the abstract is accessible, but this BBC item gives a popular assessment.