IN MARCH, physicists were shocked when a common lab chemical, magnesium
diboride, turned out to work as a superconductor at up to 40 kelvin (鈥�233
掳C). Now Helge Rosner and colleagues at the University of California, Davis,
think a related compound, lithium borocarbide, should superconduct all the way
up to 115 kelvin (鈥�158 掳C).
The newcomer is put together just like magnesium diboride,
only with lithium atoms replacing the magnesium atoms, and a
carbon atom replacing every other boron atom
(www.arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0111592).
But there鈥檚 a snag鈥攖o make it conduct electricity at
all, it will have to be 鈥渄oped鈥� first to reduce the number of electrons. That
might mean carefully removing every other lithium atom.