Vacuum Spin Pairing: A Route to Room-Temperature Superconductivity via Engineered Quantum Vacuum Fluctuations

Abstract

Giustino Travaglini

I propose a fundamentally new mechanism for superconductivity that does not rely on phonons, spin fluctuations, or any matter-derived bosonic mediator. Instead, pairing is mediated by the zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic vacuum itself, drastically modified by a metamaterial environment engineered to possess an ultrahigh magnetic local density of states (LDOS) in the terahertz (THz) range. When a strong spin-orbit-coupled conductor is embedded in such a “magnetic vacuum,” the enhanced vacuum fluctuations induce an effective spin-spin interaction between electrons. In the appropriate channel, this interaction becomes attractive and, owing to the THz energy scale, can yield Cooper pairs with binding energies exceeding 25 meV. I estimate a critical temperature well above 300 K at ambient pressure. The platform combines two existing technologies — split- ring-resonator metamaterials and spin-orbit-coupled semimetals — but integrates them in a novel manner. I detail the theoretical framework, calculate the effective pairing kernel, propose a concrete material system, and discuss the feasibility and experimental signatures. This work opens a new direction: the search for superconductivity not in new chemical compounds, but in the engineered vacuum surrounding ordinary conductors.

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