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superconductor

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.06 sec.

superconductor

A material that has little resistance to the flow of electricity. Traditional superconductors operate at absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or -273.15 degrees Celsius). Experiments in the 1980s raised the temperature to -321 degrees Fahrenheit. By the late 1990s, superconductivity was demonstrated at -164 degrees Fahrenheit.

The major use for superconductors, made of alloys of niobium, is for high-powered magnets in medical imaging machines and particle accelerators. The magnets are cooled with liquid helium or liquid nitrogen. If superconductors can ever be made to work at reasonable temperatures, they will have a dramatic impact on the future of computing as well. In the meantime, the extra cost and bulk required to cool the circuits would make superconductive computers too expensive to commercialize. See Josephson junction.



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The path to the new superconductor traces back to an obscure scientific question from the Manhattan Project.
Ultracold plutonium compound shows no resistance. (Cold War Conductor) by Weiss, P. / Science News
IEC 61788-5 Superconductivity--Part 5: Matrix to superconductor volume ratio measurement--Copper to superconductor volume ratio of Cu/Nb-Ti composite superconductors,
IEC TECHNICAL COMMITTEE, LED BY NIST, PUBLISHES FOUR NEW ... by Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
announced a one-year agreement to cooperate on superconductor research with Argonne National Laboratory, a scientific research lab operated by the University of Chicago for the U.
MagneTek, UCLA launch efforts in superconductivity research by Howard, Bob / Los Angeles Business Journal
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