Why in News:

• Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru confirms that material exhibits major properties of superconductivity at ambient temperature and pressure.

Details:

• A material is said to be a superconductor if it conducts electricity with nil resistance to the flow of electrons.
• Superconductors will help build very highly efficient devices leading to huge energy savings. Till now, scientists have been able to make materials super conduct only at temperatures much below zero degree C and hence making practical utility very difficult.
• Superconductivity at ambient temperature has been a holy grail in physics for about a century. If this [result] is correct, it would be the greatest work done in India since the discovery of Raman effect,” The material they have made is unbelievable — a tiny sphere of gold, placed 10-20 tinier spheres of silver inside it…This [material] they found shows a sharp drop in resistivity [reflecting superconducting state].

The proof:

• “Two of the most important properties of superconductivity are dimagnetism and zero resistance. These two were seen in the material.
• At 286 K there is clear transition from a normal state to a superconducting state.

What is Raman Effect?

• Some part of light beam after passing through a transparent medium gets scattered.
• This phenomenon of scattering of light is termed as Raman Scattering and the cause of scattering is called the Raman Effect.
• The wavelength of these scattered rays is different from that of the incident rays of light.
• This phenomenon was explained/discovered by Indian physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (CV Raman) on February 28, 1928.
• This discovery was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.