Picture a cold winter’s day. To keep ourselves warm, we need to bundle up in a coat and long pants to prevent heat loss. Now imagine dressing up for a sporting event. You would need attire that allows you to be free and mobile. Now picture a wire attaching a lamp to an electric socket. While it may not appear on the surface to have much in common with clothing, it does keep things insulated and mobile. The copper wire allows electricity to flow more readily from the socket to the lightbulb, while the rubber coating prevent electricity and heat from escaping the wire (and shocking us!). The importance of insulation and conduction has applications deeply involved with modern life. Just like Goku powering up against Freiza, what if conductors could become super as well. A team of South Korean researchers recently showed that cheap and common materials could create such a material, known as a superconductor, at ambient temperature 1. While the paper has recently come under mixed reviews 2, it has also renewed interest in the possibilities of how this technology could change the world.
To quickly summarize insulation and conduction, the former slows the flow of electrons and heat while the latter allows them to move readily through 3. Electricity will always be lost from modern conductors as they will always allow for some level of resistance, or that which impedes the flow of electrons. A superconductor has no resistance, allowing electrons to flow freely with no electricity or heat lost 4. The downside for this type of material is that it requires very cold temperatures, known as the critical temperature (Tc), to reach superconductivity. These high thresholds make the use for superconductors to be very limited outside of research and industry sites. If a superconductor could be formed at room temperature, it would revolutionize the future of healthcare.
The most commonly recurring theme with superconductors and healthcare is the increased efficiency and decreased cost of imaging modalities, specifically magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. Superconductors in MRIs are the largest commercial application of the product in the world, and the most expensive part of the machine as well 5. The most common alloy used in this conductor is niobium-titanium (Nb-Ti), which is cooled using liquid helium. To oversimplify, an MRI works by using a very powerful magnet to rearrange hydrogen atoms into a position that can be converted into a clear image. To create this magnetic field, the materials need to be chilled with liquid helium to -443.11 F. While the images provide superior soft tissue imaging in a non-invasive manner, it is very costly to maintain due to the very low temperatures. Switching to a material with a higher Tc can allow for cheaper cooling materials such as liquid nitrogen, but room temperature superconducting material would further improve on this as the total number of necessary materials and thresholds would ultimately be decreased.
Superconductors and their applications are not limited to only imaging: they would also allow for the daily use of quantum computers. Due to their programming, quantum computers more efficiently complete requests and search commands compared to modern computers 6. The changes they could make to computers could make streamline paper review, disease diagnosis, and research studies. Hints of this technology first occurred in the 2010s when IBM’s computer Watson used its ability of reading through several volumes of text to challenge contestants on Jeopardy 7. While most medical professionals are not asking “where the bleeding is coming from for $200,” similar technology would allow professionals or even solely the machine to rapidly comb through current data for diagnosing and treating patients. Combining these capabilities with the diagnostics included with today’s fitness trackers and smartwatches would lead to a very individualized healthcare system. The possibilities of research and drug development may forever change with this technology as well. In addition to cell culture, animal model, and human randomized-control trials, quantum computing could lead to in silico models, or studies performed using computer simulations. This technology is already being used to find derivatives holding potentials for future medications and finding chemicals acting similar to current medications 8.
Superconductors have a great range of use in the modern world. More readily available superconductors would change the landscape in many areas of technology, including health and medicine. While LK99 study may unfortunately be more hype than groundbreaking, it did reinvigorate the possibilities for how important this discovery could be. Imaging could be cheaper. Testing could be more individualized and rapid. While the true development of technology such as this may be decades away, the possible applications of superconductors are already here.
References
1. Lee S, Kim J, Kim H-T, Im S, An S, Auh KH. Superconductor PB10-x Cux (PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure and mechanism. arXiv.org. August 11, 2023. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037.
2. Garisto D. LK-99 isn’t a superconductor - how science sleuths solved the mystery. Nature News. August 16, 2023. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02585-7.
3. Conductors and insulators. Nondestructive Evaluation Physics : Electricity. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://www.nde-ed.org/Physics/Electricity/conductorsinsulators.xhtml.
4. Doe explains...superconductivity. Energy.gov. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainssuperconductivity.
5. Parizh M, Lvovsky Y, Sumption M. Conductors for commercial MRI magnets beyond NBTI: Requirements and challenges. Superconductor science & technology. January 2017.
Accessed August 22, 2023. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5472374/.
6. Bravyi S, Dial O, Gambetta JM, Gil D, Nazario Z. The future of quantum computing with superconducting qubits. AIP Publishing. October 26, 2022. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article/132/16/160902/2837574.
7. A computer called Watson. IBM100 - A Computer Called Watson. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/watson/.
8. Brogi S, Ramalho TC, Kuca K, Medina-Franco JL, Valko M. Editorial: In silico methods for drug design and Discovery. Frontiers. June 11, 2020. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2020.00612/full.