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Back to 🔬 Synthesis Superintelligence: from Semiconductors to Superconductors — Periodic Labs’ Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk, with Liam Fedus & Ekin Dogus Cubuk.

Why Did Alex Müller Win a Nobel Prize for Cuprates?

Ekin Dogus Cubuk says Alex Müller won a Nobel Prize because cuprates worked after his nickelates did not. Müller thought transition metal oxides might be a path to superconductivity. He tried nickelates, nickel and oxygen plus some cations, and that did not work. He tried cuprates, copper and oxygen plus some cations, and that worked.

Nickel and copper sit next to each other on the periodic table, and there are only so many 3D transition metals. Nickelates later turned out to be a good idea. Harold Hwang, a Stanford professor working with the lab, made nickelates as a thin film and showed the superconductivity. Chemical spaces that might host superconductivity are not hard to think of. What is hard is to synthesize them, which is why this work puts its weight on synthesis rather than on another guess about which compound to name.

Grokipedia·Alex Mueller·Nobel Prize

Transcript

🔬 Synthesis Superintelligence: from Semiconductors to Superconductors — Periodic Labs’ Liam Fedus and Ekin Dogus Cubuk ·

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

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  1. What Is an AI Scientist Lab?Liam Fedus says an AI scientist lab joins AI systems, simulations of the physical world, and a high-throughput experiment, because thinking alone cannot…
  2. Why Can't Reinforcement Learning Wait on a Superconductor?Liam Fedus says reinforcement learning cannot wait on a superconductor, because an update that sits for a couple of days to see whether a run found a…
  3. What Does More Is Different Mean?Brandon Anderson says Phil Anderson's line, more is different, means someone can know the basic laws and still be wrong about what happens when many parts are…
  4. What Is a Matter Compiler?Liam Fedus says a matter compiler is a lab that takes a requested material and works out a process that can make it, the way a chip fab builds a design it did…
  5. Why Is Materials Data Never Deleted?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says materials data is never deleted because any measurement the team can collect is precious. A person cannot watch every atom.
  6. Why Can't Density Functional Theory Replace Experiments?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says density functional theory cannot replace experiments, even at a hundred million trials. The method usually simulates a perfect crystal.
  7. What Does It Mean for Lab Equipment to Have 140 IQ?Liam Fedus says lab equipment with a 140 IQ is an instrument that runs its own AI, because people checking every sample by eye cannot keep up once the lab…
  8. How Did Periodic Labs Catch a Bad Machine Load?Liam Fedus says Periodic Labs caught a bad machine load because an AI system with a full view of the lab data noticed a pattern no single run made obvious.
  9. What Is a Null Result in Materials?Liam Fedus says a null result in materials can mean the team intended to produce a structure and every measurement says they did not.
  10. Why Is There No Fast Test for Superconductivity?Ekin Dogus Cubuk says there is no fast test for superconductivity.
  11. How Does Periodic Labs Work With Semiconductor Companies?Liam Fedus says Periodic Labs works with semiconductor companies by sending its own engineers and researchers on site, into very private and secure labs, to…

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