Cooper Boundaries

Supercritical fluids are related to superfluids through the concept of Cooper pairs. In a conductive material, such as copper, the flow of electrons move towards the largest positive terminal. The reason why copper is a good conductor is because it is able to lose electrons in its outer shell, and become slightly positive. The combination of the electrons repelling each other, and their attraction towards both the slightly positive copper atoms and positive terminal lead to the electrons bouncing off of the copper atoms. This is called electrical resistance. However, at low temperatures, usually near 10 kelvin, electrons can become paired up. These pairs of electrons are called Cooper pairs. Electrons by themselves are fermions, and are restricted …show more content…
A Rydberg atom is an atom with one or more electrons that have a high principal quantum number. Essentially, this means that the electrons occupy an electron shell further from the atom, and spend time further from the nucleus. These electrons have much higher energy and are less bound to their nucleus. Because of their behavior, they tend to stay in the classical planar orbits around the nucleus. This means that the Bohr model is still applicable today for describing the behavior of electrons in Rydberg atoms. Because the electrons are so far from the nucleus, typically the Rydberg atoms behave like their their normal counterparts in some aspects. Rydberg atoms react in an exaggerated manner when an electromagnetic field is applied. These atoms are able to form crystalline structures, typically hexagonal in shape. In Rydberg matter, as these planar structures are called, the electrons with a high principal quantum number become delocalized and form an electron medium, grey in the image above, around the core ions of the Rydberg atoms. Rydberg matter can last from a few seconds to the age of the universe. As the principal quantum number increases, the matter gets more stable. If the electrons that make up the medium have a principal quantum number of 12, meaning the electron is twelve electron shells out, the structure lasts for half a minute, but if the principal quantum number is …show more content…
A supercritical fluid is a substance whose temperature and pressure are above their critical points. The image on the left shows the relative location of the supercritical state for carbon dioxide. Supercritical fluids take on the of both gases and liquids. They effuse like gases, dissolve like liquids, and change density rapidly in response to temperature and pressure changes. They typically have a density, viscosity, and diffusivity (a substance’s ability to diffuse) that is in-between gases and liquids. Supercritical fluids have no surface tension, and are