A superconducting ink made through a simple process called chemical exfoliation could be used to print the cold circuits inside quantum computers and MRI machines
A render of a quantum computer Shutterstock / Bartlomiej K. Wroblewski Source: Shutterstock A superconducting ink that can be printed onto surfaces in a single-molecule-thick layer could prove useful for the building of circuits for quantum computers. The tungsten disulfide ink is more stable than other superconducting inks and it is simpler to make, which bodes well for future applications. When a material is superconductive, electricity can pass through it with zero resistance, making it an extraordinarily efficient way to transmit energy. Superconductive materials also have special magnetic properties, but they tend to be difficult to make and they break down when exposed to air or to temperatures too far from absolute zero. Xiaoyu Song and Leslie Schoop at Princeton University and their colleagues produced the tungsten disulfide ink using a process called chemical exfoliation. They started out with a material made of alternating layers of tungsten…