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Quantum Locking (Flux Pinning) Tobiah Dustin Spurlock Beaufort, South Carolina [email protected] FLUX PINNING Flux pinning is the phenomenon where a superconductor is pinned in space above a magnet. The superconductor must be a typeII superconductor due to the fact that type-I superconductors cannot be penetrated by magnetic fields. The act of magnetic penetration is what makes flux pinning possible. At higher temperatures the superconductor allows magnetic flux to enter in quantized packets surrounded by a superconducting current vortex(Wiki- Flux Pinning). The places where these packets pass through the superconductor are known as flux tubes. At low temperatures these flux tubes are forced to remain in one place with no motion, causing the superconductor to become locked in place. I. order to create a superconductor, a conducting material must be cooled beneath its critical temperature. Once a conductor reaches its critical temperature, all resistance vanishes and the conductor transitions into a superconductor. The graph below shows the immediate loss of resistance a superconductive material undergoes when it reaches a certain temperature. FLUX TUBES A flux tube is a generally cylindrical region of space containing a magnetic field. Flux tubes can easily be created using a superconductor’s characteristics of magnetic repulsion. By placing a superconductor over a magnet, flux tubes are created through the minute cracks in the superconductor for the magnetic flux lines to pass through. During quantum locking these flux tubes are locked into place to achieve the lowest state of energy. By locking these flux lines into place in the superconductor, the superconductor essentially locks itself into place above the magnet. Since it is being locked into place, neither attracted nor repelled, the superconductor is then free to move about as III. II. SUPERCONDUCTORS What is a super conductor? It is substance capable of becoming superconducting at sufficiently low temperatures. A. What does this mean? .A superconductor is classified as such if it satisfies two conditions. The first condition that makes a superconductor is its conductivity. In order for it to be a superconductor, it must be able to conduct electricity with no loss of energy. A superconductor must also repel magnetism. In B. long as the magnetic field is constant throughout the superconductor’s path. CAPABILITIES A superconductor that has become locked has amazing capabilities. When placed over a magnetic field of 350 Oe, a three inch disk that is half a micron thick can support over 70,000 times its own weight. If you upped that to two millimeters thick, it would be able to support over 1000 kg, or a small car. This amazing feat is attainable because of the immense amount of flux tubes that are created in the superconductor. In the superconductor previously mentioned, three inches across, there are over one hundred billion flux tubes that are created when placed over a magnet. Locking all these flux lines into place locks the superconductor into place above the magnet with immense strength. IV. Advantages The advantages with flux pinning have yet to be fully discovered but its potential is easy to see. By Quantum locking frictionless joints can be created which could amount to huge already exist but require huge amounts of energy to sustain, such as the MAGLEV train, could then be replaced by a more stable energy efficient system. The current frictionless joint that the MAGLEV system uses attains its levitation through either repulsion or attraction. Although this system has been put into effect and proven efficient, having a train that is locked into place rather than having constant pressure would prove much safer. Another advantage of quantum locking over electromagnets is the power consumption required to keep a electromagnet magnetizing. Using quantum locking rather than electromagnetism would cut the cost dramatically. A. Disadvantages Like the advantages, the disadvantages are still being discovered as research is continually done on the subject. The major disadvantage and problem facing physicist and scientist B. today is that a superconductor can only be created under extreme temperatures. A conductor must be cooled to extremely low temperatures before the resistance fades and it begins magnetic repulsion. When super conductors were first discovered, they could only be created using liquid helium to cool the resistor to 4 degrees Kelvin. In 1986 researchers discover that certain ceramic materials reached their critical temperatures at a much higher temperature, about 90 degrees Kelvin. This allows them to be created using liquid nitrogen which is 70 degrees Kelvin and is much easier to come by for researchers, since then much more has been learned about them. These new high-temp superconductors have already reduced the disadvantages of superconductors and it may happen again, allowing for superconductors to become a more realistic source of levitation. V. Engineering Applications The uses for quantum locking on designs are endless. If a reliable, stable, safe way to create superconductors is discovered, anything from hover-boards to floating cars is possible. Since superconductors have no electrical resistance, they have already found uses in machines such as particle accelerators, medical MRI machines, and power cables. Energy storage is being enhanced by the superconductor’s ability to maintain it for infinite amounts of time with no energy loss. These advancements are setting up to create a flawless system that seems to break the rules of physics. If using a superconductor as a cable power can be transferred to a superconductor with no energy loss. That superconductor then stores the energy for an indefinite amount of time while retaining 100 % of the energy that came into the system. If this is transferred again using a superconductor, the system will have achieved 100% efficiency since it has lost no power throughout the process, a thing once thought impossible till now. The advancement in superconductors is the key to advancements in quantum locking. By making them more stable and less reliant on the temperature, quantum locking can become a common thing with endless engineering applications. REFERENCES [1]http://www.ted.com/talks/boaz_almog_levitates_a_su perconductor.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercon ductivity [2]http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/ene rgy/superconductivity.htm [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductivity http://www.ted.com/talks/boaz_almog_levitates_a_supe rconductor.html [4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Locking