GE Lab Coats Silicon With Superconductor

General Electric Co. said Thursday that it succeeded for the first time in applying a film of superconducting material on silicon at temperatures high enough to make practical use possible.

GE said scientists at its GE Research Center were able to coat the silicon, the basic building block of most computer chips, with material that lost all resistance to electricity at minus 310 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that can be obtained by using liquid nitrogen as a coolant.

Scientists believe that liquid nitrogen superconductors could prove more practical than those that require cooling by liquid helium because liquid nitrogen is less expensive and easier to handle than liquid helium.