India, Bangalore: In a paper published recently by group of researchers from Indian Institute of Science, titled “Coexistence of Diamagnetism and Vanishingly Small Electrical Resistance at Ambient Temperature and Pressure in Nanostructures”, the authors claim a great discovery of ultra-low resistance electrical conductors and superconductors in ambience.
They reported the observation of vanishingly small electrical resistance at the ambient temperature and pressure conditions in films and pellets of a nanostructured material that is composed of silver particles embedded into a gold matrix.
Upon cooling below a sample-specific temperature scale as high as 286 K, the film resistance reportedly drops below 2 mW, being limited by measurement uncertainty. The corresponding resistivity of around 10-12 W.m is at least four orders of magnitude below that of elemental noble metals, such as gold, silver or copper.
Furthermore, the samples become strongly diamagnetic below sample-specific temperature scale. Paper additionally describes methods to tune to temperatures much higher than room temperature.
The research was financially supported by the Indian Institute of Science and the DST Nanomission grant.