Latest Superconductors Stories

The Key Laboratory of Applied Superconductivity, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and China Research have collaborated to reveal the heat treatment effects on the superconducting properties of Ag-doped Sr0.6K0.4Fe2As2 compounds. Because of its significant research value, the study is reported in issue 7 of SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy.Previously, our group studied the effect of adding Ag to polycrystalline Sr0.6K0.4Fe2As2 and found...

Superconducting materials, which transmit power resistance-free, are found to perform optimally when high- and low-charge density varies on the nanoscale level, according to research performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.In research toward better understanding the dynamics behind high-temperature superconductivity, the ORNL scientists rewrote computational code for the numerical Hubbard model that previously assumed copper-compound superconducting materials...

In a major step toward understanding the mysterious "pseudogap" state in high-temperature cuprate superconductors, a team of Cornell, Binghamton University and Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists have found a "broken symmetry," where electrons act like molecules in a liquid crystal: Electrons between copper and oxygen atoms arrange themselves differently "north-south" than "east-west."This simple discovery opens a door to new research that could...

May lead to ways to overcome barrier to room-temperature superconductivity in copper-oxidesScientists have been trying for some 20 years to understand why the low temperature at which copper-oxide superconductors carry current with no resistance can't be increased to be closer to room temperature. Recently, scientists have focused on trying to understand and control an electronic phase called the "pseudogap" phase, which is non-superconducting and is observed at a temperature above...

New materials yield clues about high-temperature superconductorsA team of U.S. and Chinese physicists are zeroing in on critical effects at the heart of the latest high-temperature superconductors -- but they're using other materials to do it.In new research appearing online today in the journal Physical Review Letters, the Rice University-led team offers new evidence about the quantum features of the latest class of high-temperature superconductors, a family of iron-based compounds called...

Controlling structure on the nanoscale could lead to better superconductorsSuperconductors, materials in which current flows without resistance, have tantalizing applications. But even the highest-temperature superconductors require extreme cooling before the effect kicks in, so researchers want to know when and how superconductivity comes about in order to coax it into existence at room temperature. Now a team has shown that, in a copper-based superconductor, tiny areas of weak...

Brown University physicist Vesna Mitrovic and colleagues at Brown and in France have discovered magnetic waves that fluctuate when exposed to certain conditions in a superconducting material. The discovery may help scientists understand more fully the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity at the quantum level. Results are published in Physical Review Letters.At the quantum level, the forces of magnetism and superconductivity exist in an uneasy relationship. Superconducting...

First direct evidence of quantum critical point in iron-based 'pnictides'New experiments on a recently discovered class of iron-based superconductors suggest that the ability of their electrons to conduct electricity without resistance is directly connected with the magnetic properties of those electrons.Results of the experiments appear in the Jan. 8 issue of Physical Review Letters. The tests, which were carried out by a team of U.S. and Chinese physicists, shed light on the fundamental...

Findings may lead to precision engineering of superconducting thin films for electronic devicesUsing precision techniques for making superconducting thin films layer-by-layer, physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a single layer responsible for one such material's ability to become superconducting, i.e., carry electrical current with no energy loss. The technique, described in the October 30, 2009, issue of Science, could be used to...

Canadian scientists are challenging physics' single-band Hubbard theory that's used to predict and calculate behavior of high-temperature superconductors. University of British Columbia researchers said their findings mark the first compelling evidence challenging the Hubbard model under certain conditions, and could necessitate entirely new theoretical approaches to explaining superconductivity in certain materials. Single-band Hubbard physics has been used for 20 years to predict how...