Bucky Ball-Based High-Temperature Organic Superconductors

Just what are Bucky Balls? They're large molecules made up of 60 carbon atoms shaped like soccer balls that are named after American inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, because they resemble the geodesic domes that he designed. In 1991, a Bell Labs team showed that Bucky Balls can act as superconductors at very low temperatures when mixed with potassium. Scientists from Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs have now shown that these carbon molecules can also act as superconductors at relatively warm temperatures, which they think might lead to inexpensive, power-loss-free organic electronics and other applications like quantum computers. Superconductors are materials in which the resistance to the flow of electricity vanishes below a certain temperature. The Bell Labs team was able to demonstrate that Bucky Balls acted as superconductors below 117 Kelvin (minus 249 degrees Fahrenheit), which is more than double the previous temperature record of 52 Kelvin (minus 366 degrees Fahrenheit) set last year. Cold as the new temperature may sound, it is warm enough for the Bucky Ball superconductors to function while cooled by liquid nitrogen instead of the much more expensive liquid helium. A Bell Labs team inserted molecules of chloroform and bromoform (a chemical molecule similar to chloroform but with bromine atoms instead of chlorine atoms) in between Bucky Balls to create a "stretched" Bucky Ball crystal where the Bucky Ball molecules were spaced further apart than usual since the chloroform and bromoform molecules were wedged between them. This lowered the electronic and molecular attraction between neighboring Bucky Ball molecules in the crystal. By building a sensitive electronic device known as a field effect transistor and connecting it to the crystal, the scientists were able to produce superconductivity in the Bucky Ball crystal at a record-breaking temperature of minus 249 degrees Fahrenheit. The only other known superconductors that work at this and higher temperatures are copper oxide superconductors. Get the feeling I just like to say "Bucky Balls?"