Original title
Unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene superlattices.
The contents in this steem post was originally published by us at the Fair Journal on: https://thefairjournal.com/2019/03/27/superconductivity-in-graphene/
We translate scientific articles into an easily accessible language so people without a science background can understand the research and its ramifications. We also make a cartoon for children that focuses on making science fun while explaining the essence of the research at hand. Please let us know what you think about it in the comment section below.
Cartoon version
Introduction
When electricity moves through material some of its energy is lost due to conversion into heat and light. The loss of energy is dependent on the material, and a superconductor is a material where no energy is lost. Superconductivity was initially found by cooling down pure materials (such as mercury and lead) to very low temperatures near absolute zero (i.e. -273°C/-459°F/0°K). Compared to the original superconductivity, unconventional superconductivity has different physical properties, can be a mixture of materials, and may work at higher temperatures. Unconventional superconductivity has been researched for many years, but scientists are still struggling to understand how it works. Therefore, scientists are trying to make new techniques and equipment to study and understand it better.
Findings
The authors of “Unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene superlattices” [read original article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26160] describe a completely new way of generating superconductivity: By placing 2 layers of the material graphene on top of each other, and twisting them at a certain angle. This ‘magic’ angle differs from material to material and for graphene it was found to be 1.1°. Graphene is a simple layer of carbon structured in a manner similar to chicken wire but with 6 corners (hexagons). The twisting offsets the grid a tiny bit, which affects the way electricity travels through the material. The scientists were thereby able to fine-tune their system by simply applying electric currents of various strengths. This is much simpler than previous unconventional superconductivity systems (such as cuprates), which required strong magnetic fields in order to be tuned.
Conclusions
Even though the discovery still requires very low temperatures of -271°C/-457°F/1.7°K, there is hope that it may pave the way for new superconductors that would function at higher temperatures. If scientists are able to find a way to generate superconductors that work at room temperature, they could be used to minimize energy loss in everything using electricity. Research into superconductors is therefore of very high importance for the sustainable future of the world. With the discovery of a user-friendly and easy-to-study system described here, we may soon be getting closer to a solution.
Disclaimer
Note: the above text is a layman summary and has not been peer-reviewed. Please refer to the original article for more details: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26160.
I really loved it! This is a really cool video and a very nice text... I will try to show it to my 8 years-old kid to see whether he understands. One potential future development could consist in translations in different languages. What do you think?
After seing this, I really would love to get something similar for my own articles... But unfortunately, I have no funding for that... :/
Finally, a last Steem-related comment, that may be relevant to avoid issues with anti-plagiarism teams. Could you please add somewhere that this article has been extracted from thefairjournal.com (and give the exact address) and that you are the same person (so that everyone can get that you are not stealing the content of someone else to get money out of it). Of course, we (SteemSTEM) know that, but not everyone knows it ;)
Hi lemouth, thanks a lot, I'm very happy that you like it! And I would be very interested in hearing whether your kid would understand it. One of my future plans is indeed to translate the voiceover into other languages, but since I do not have that big of a budget right now, I can only afford the English version at the moment. On YouTube users can submit their own subtitles, which could be an ok alternative in the beginning instead of voiceovers in different languages.
In the long run you are not meant to pay anything for this. Actually also not now. If you submit a layman version of your article on thefairjournal.com you are automatically eligible for cartoon production after the layman summary has earned in 100$ from ads (1/3 of my production costs). But since nobody has submitted a layman version yet, you are very likely to get a cartoon made sooner than that, because I am currently looking for new articles to convert :)
And thank you very much for the suggestion about linking to the original post on thefairjournal.com! I will do that right away!
All the best, Jonas
I will think about it, as I already have written several summaries of my own articles on my own blog. Most of the time, I discuss research that I find interesting and made by others; once in a while, I however chat about my own articles.
Of course, if we go that way, I will have to significantly alter them to avoid any self-plagiarism issue, but this may require a reasonable amount of work... Anyways, this is for the future (as I still struggle with university duties related to the beginning of the new term).
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I love this post and obviously the video!
It is perfect and easy to understand, also for a kid! As lemouth I think that translating the video would be useful, maybe if I have some time I will add the subtitles in Italian on Youtube.
That would be a nice way to contribute. Feel free to keep SteemSTEM (and ita-stem) into the loop if this happens. We will support that initiative!
In this case I can't translate the video because "the community contribution" isn't enabled.
@thefairjournal if you change this option I can write the subtitles.
Hi sciack, thank you so much for this! And I'm really sorry that I did not have the option applied previously. It should be there now, otherwise let me know and I will look into it again!
Ok, perfect, I have just added Italian subtitles in your video!
That's super nice, thank you again sciack! I don't see them there yet, but it also took some hours before the english ones appeared after I uploaded them. So I will be patient and have a look again later :)
This is a great news! I am happy that SteemSTEM managed to put both of you in contact.
PS: I have noticed your discord message. I will answer it asap (today or tomorrow).
You are right, we have to wait some time.
Ok!
Glad to see this solved :)
This is quite interesting, it has always been said that graphene can replace silicon but it has many disadvantages and one of them is its production, because although it is obtained from carbon and graphite it is very difficult to obtain high quality graphene which is the that is needed to apply in different technological avenues. I hope that in the future we can create ways to obtain graphene more easily and less expensively in monetary terms.
The video is great and is easy to understand for any type of audience that is not related to physics or engineering.
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