Irinite

The first samples of this mineral were recovered in 2027 during a deep sea exploratory research. Other than natural sources were documented but the artificial manufacturing methods remain elusive.

General description

Name

The name Irinite comes from the greek words for Iris (goddess of rainbow) and refers to the typical iridescence of the pristine crystals.

Properties

The mineral shows a second order light-induced colouration effect. When illuminated with a light of a specific wavelength and power the colouration changes and remains stable for as long as weeks or months. The fading process is sometimes refered to as volatility and was shown to depend on a number of external factors, temperature being the most important. In one research^{[citation needed]} the discoloration half-time was inversely proportional to the wavelength of the coded colour.

Usage

Chromatic Memory Storage

The basic usage relies on a simple mixture of colours, where one would use RGB scale to code a specific value. With the saturation being set at a specific threshold, a single spot can code up to 8 bits.

High-teperature superconductivity

A competitive demand rises from the characteristic chemistry of the compound. It was shown by Elren et al. that an oxidated derivative of the mineral exhibits Celsius superconductivity with magnetic forces strong enough to enable magnetic levitation. Following the discovery of a new mineral source in Baltic Sea and the post-covid energy crisis, the Baltic Ore Federation was established and called upon a 9:1 rule, i.e. for every tonne sold for the Chromatic Memory Storage nine tonnes would go to the research regarding magnetic levitation. Additionally, all produced maglevs would be first sold to the Federation countries and none could be resold outside of the federation until the domestic demand is exhausted.

Hot research topics

There are a number of research topics which gather increasing interest, mainly due to the low-availability of the irinite ore. Here are some notable mentions:

1. Biocrystallization of deep sea deposits under elevated pressures
2. Thin film crystallization of irinite-like Celsius superconductors
3. Towards hybrid CMT-based storage. Can Irinite be tailored to support distributed information storage?