Cement Becomes Superconducting Metal Under Laser Fire
Many centuries ago, alchemists across the world took up the task of trying to turn lead into gold. Though such an endeavor has often been scoffed at, we may be getting a bit closer. For the first time ever, a team of international researchers have successfully turned cement into metal.
The key to the researcher's success was (what else?) a very powerful laser. The laser heated the powdered cement to roughly 2,000 degrees Celsius. From there the now-molten cement was suspended in mid-air using a levitator (yes, they exist), and then was subjected to various gases that modofoed the chemical bonds of the cement.
Voila! The cement turned into a liquid metal, gaining properties that allowed it to act as a semi-conductor. Because this new form of cement has better resistance to corrosion than metal and is less brittle than glass, it is possible that it could be ideal for all products that require something in a metallic-glass form.
"This new material has lots of applications, including as thin-film resistors used in liquid-crystal displays, basically the flat panel computer monitor that you are probably reading this from at the moment," said Chris Benmore, a physicist from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory who worked on the project.
Researchers from Japan, Germany, Finland, and the United States all came together to develop this modern day form of alchemy. Benmore and Shinji Kohara from Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute/SPring-8 led the research effort. Eleven other researchers were also part of the team.
"This phenomenon of trapping electrons and turning liquid cement into liquid metal was found recently, but not explained in detail until now," Benmore said. "Now that we know the conditions needed to create trapped electrons in materials we can develop and test other materials to find out if we can make them conduct electricity in this way."
The study first gained attention after its results were reported May 27 in the journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences under the article title "Network topology for the formation of solvated electrons in binary CaO-Al2O3 composition glasses".