Iron-Based Superconductor

In a new paper, scientists uncovered a new state called Cooper-pair density modulation that could teach us a lot about high-temperature superconduction.

In the field of superconductivity—the phenomenon in which electrons can flow through a material with essentially zero resistance—the "holy grail" of discovery is a superconductor that can perform under everyday temperatures and pressures. Such a material could revolutionize modern life. But currently, even the "high-temperature" (high-Tc) superconductors that have been discovered must be kept very cold to…

As a macroscopic quantum state of matter, superconductivity has attracted tremendous attention in the field of scientific research and industry over the past century. According to the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) microscopic theory, superconductivity arises from the condensation of coherent Cooper pairs, and each Cooper pair is formed by two electrons with opposite spins and momenta.

Fifteen years ago, an alternative technique to look for the elusive Majorana particles was conceived theoretically. But no one carried out the experiment, until now. Physicist Jianfeng Ge and his colleagues from the Allan lab of the Leiden Institute of Physics have now successfully carried out the first measurements. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The quest for boundless energy takes an electrifying turn with this magic mineral.

The power of magnets could be the key to going from extremely cold superconductors to … less extremely cold superconductors.

In a recent study, researchers led by Chen Qihong and Jin Kui from the Institute of Physics (IOP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) used an ionic-liquid gating technique to tune the transition temperature (Tc) of FeSe, the structurally simplest iron-based superconductor, and found a universal quantitative relationship between superconductivity and the strange-metal state, which gives insight into the…

Electronic nematicity, believed to be an important ingredient in high-temperature superconductivity, is primarily spin-driven in the iron-based superconductor FeSe, reveals a new study.

A new technique reveals high-speed trajectories of oscillating vortices and shows that they are 10,000 times lighter than expected.

Exploration of exotic quantum phase transitions has always been a focus in condensed matter physics. Critical phenomena in a phase transition are entirely determined by the universality class, which is controlled by the spatial and/or order-parameters and is independent of microscopic details.

Under certain conditions—usually exceedingly cold ones—some materials shift their structure to unlock new, superconducting behavior. This structural shift is known as a "nematic transition," and physicists suspect that it offers a new way to drive materials into a superconducting state where electrons can flow entirely friction-free.

Researchers from PSI's Spectroscopy of Quantum Materials group together with scientists from Beijing Normal University have solved a puzzle at the forefront of research into iron-based superconductors: the origin of FeSe's electronic nematicity. Using Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Swiss Light Source (SLS), they discovered that, surprisingly, this electronic phenomenon is primarily spin driven.…

Superconductors are materials that conduct electrical current with practically no electrical resistance at all. This ability makes them extremely interesting and attractive for a plethora of applications such as loss-less power cables, electric motors and generators, as well as powerful electromagnets that can be used for MRI imaging and for magnetic levitating trains. Now, researchers have detailed the…

FeSe, an iron-based superconductor, is an important prototype material to study the superconduction-related properties, and electron-phonon coupling (EPC) plays an important role in FeSe. Pressure changes the structure of FeSe, which results in the changes of EPC.