FASTER electronic circuits could be made out of doped-up buckyballs. Crystals
of these soccer-ball-shaped molecules of carbon normally become superconducting
only when cooled to a frigid –221 °C. Their total lack of resistance
to electric current makes them an ideal material for high-tech electronic
circuits, but it’s impracticable to keep them that cold.
Now Hendrik Schön and colleagues at Bell Lab’s Lucent Technologies in
New Jersey have upped the superconducting temperature to a more convenient
–156 °C by sticking organic molecules containing chlorine and bromine
into the crystal lattice. The impurities introduced by this doping create more
space for…
