New State of matter Discovered - Jahn-Teller Metal

A New state of matter has been discovered (seems like more of a transition state to me, but ok...) - Jahn-Teller.

Researchers took a crystalline arrangement of carbon-60 molecules - known as ‘buckyballs’ - and inserted atoms of rubidium.

When the pressure between the buckyballs was increased by adding more rubidium atoms, the material changed from being an insulator into a superconductor.

In so doing, they created a material that had the properties of an insulator, superconductor, metal and a magnet, all in one.

The change from an insulator to a conductor is known as the Jahn-Teller effect, and it was first predicted in 1937 - but had not been found until now - earning the new material the moniker of Jahn-Teller metal.

The Jahn-Teller metal suggests that materials can be turned into superconductors without having to chill them to extreme temperatures, and instead allow superconductivity to occur at -135°C (-211°F).

Jahn-Teller Metal - Daily Mail Article

Awesome... What advancements can be achieved with this knowledge? I know that with superconductors we already use in the super speed trains and this would help with that, as mentioned the supersonducter needs to be cooled to a rediculously low temp.
a reply to: Quadraphobe

How is that considered a state of matter.?. I thought there was only solid, liquid, gas, and plasma?

a reply to: ResearchNOWknowledge

I think he means "state" as in superconductor that can function at reasonable temps, rather than needing to be cooled via liquid helium or some other ridiculous means

a reply to: ResearchNOWknowledge

There are technically many types - upto 15 - but I question this, I think some are transitional states and not true separate states of matter. The currently agreed states are:

Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Photonic matter, Supersolid, Quantum Hall state, Quantum spin liquid, Bose-Einstein condensate, String-net liquid, Plasma Fermionic condensate, Supercritical liquid, Colloids, Superconductivity, Dropleton, Degenerate matter, Superfluid and now Jahn-Teller Metal

Well, in the show Stargatge SG-1 the gate is made of a super conducting material. Who knows, maybe superconductors can help us with propulsion or wormhole research?

originally posted by: ResearchNOWknowledge
How is that considered a state of matter.?. I thought there was only solid, liquid, gas, and plasma?

solid = atoms are in a high density arrangement and have strong electron bonds that cannot be broken with extreme effort
liquid = atoms have a high density arrangement and have weak electron bonds that weakly attract each other.
gas = atoms are in a low density and have a full set of electrons but have no attractive force to each other.
plasma = atoms have a partial set of electrons and behave like a liquid but at a density of a gas.

If you have these Rubidium atoms and trap them inside a a buckyball sphere, they have features of all four states: high density of a solid or liquid, they also ionize easily allowing currents to flow across.

This is a biggy. The list,

Maglev (magnetic levitation) trains. These work because a superconductor repels a magnetic
field so a magnet will float above a superconductor – this virtually eliminates the friction
between the train and the track. However, there are safety concerns about the strong
magnetic fields used as these could be a risk to human health.
● Large hadron collider or particle accelerator. This use of superconductors was developed at the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK in the 1960s. The latest and biggest large
hadron collider is currently being built in Switzerland by a coalition of scientific organisations
from several countries. Superconductors are used to make extremely powerful electromagnets
to accelerate charged particles very fast (to near the speed of light).
● SQUIDs (Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices) are used to detect even the weakest
magnetic field. They are used in mine detection equipment to help in the removal of land
mines.
● The USA is developing “E-bombs”. These are devices that make use of strong, superconductorderived
magnetic fields to create a fast, high-intensity electromagnetic pulse that can disable
an enemy’s electronic equipment. These devices were first used in wartime in March 2003
when USA forces attacked an Iraqi broadcast facility. They can release two billion watts of
energy at once.
The following uses of superconductors are under development:
● Making electricity generation more efficient.
● Very fast computing.

Of course the military e-bomb is the downside, if the military can do it as of now, and later without a need for cooling, it won't be long until Tom Dick and Harry get in the act.
I forgot to mention the BTTF Hoverboard

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Michio Kaku once wrote about using semiconductors to power maglev mass transit systems in the far future or even 'landspeeders'

It's still a long way off but every step forward is a step closer. As for the wormholes I have no idea, you better page Phage

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Well, in the show Stargatge SG-1 the gate is made of a super conducting material. Who knows, maybe superconductors can help us with propulsion or wormhole research?

It is still a state that requires a -211°F environment so this is no room temperature SC cool as it is. The reduced requirements are very useful.

The main application for a room temp SC is for energy transmission, it would have the potential to make the geographic position of any energy source (every nuclear plant, solar panel, windmill, tidal, geothermal, etc.) essentially irrelevant.

Not quite in the realm of dry ice, but liquid nitrogen could do the job now. And liquid nitrogen is more available than most people would think. (Used quite a bit in various industrial processes.) Thing is, how expensive would this Jahn-Teller metal be to produce in any significantly usable amount?

In this model the potential essentially renormalizes the order parameter so that if the pairing lowers the energy of the molecular structure, then the energy gap tends to zero asymptotically as 1/T with increasing of temperature - Eq.(31). Thus, formally, in this model the critical temperature is equal to infinity, however the energy gap remains finite quantity. For practical realization of this model we propose a hypothetical superconductor on the basis of alkali-doped fullerides using endohedral structures He@C60, where a helium atom is in the center of each fullerene molecule. In an endohedral fullerene the helium atom interacts with a carbon cage by Van der Waals force. The interaction depends on a state of excess electrons on surface of the molecule. They have shown that energy of the molecule if the excess electrons on its surface are in the paired state.

Nextbigfuture.com, Oct 27, 2016 - Helium encased in a carbon fullerene buckyball is proposed as a possible room temperature superconductor.

arXiv.org paper - The role of electron-vibron interaction and local pairing in conductivity and superconductivity of alkali-doped fullerides. The route to a room-temperature superconductor.

So, the Jahn-Teller metal works continues. Looks like by wading through different doping saturations they figured out how the insulator-superconductor works in rubidium. So, armed with that information they speculate that using helium with certain N-doped carbon 60 allotropes (i.e., buckyballs) should do the trick.

There needs to be a demonstration of this theoretical work! Maybe wrap it all up in a carbon nanotubes to make a wire?

Is this the famous "room temperature superconductor" that will save the world?? (Sqee!)