Unconventional Superconductor

Developing new quantum devices relies on controlling how electrons behave. A material called graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, has fascinated researchers in recent years because its electrons behave as if they have no mass. For decades, scientists have also been interested in high-temperature superconductors: ceramic materials where electron interactions yield a macroscopic quantum state where electrons…

The shifting, scintillating pattern you can see when you stack two slightly misaligned window screens is called moiré. A similar interference effect occurs when scientists stack two-dimensional crystals with mismatched atomic spacings. Moiré superlattices display exotic physical properties that are absent in the layers that make up the patterns. These properties are rooted in the quantum nature of electrons.

MIT physicists and colleagues have discovered the "secret sauce" behind some of the exotic properties of a new quantum material that has transfixed physicists due to those properties, which include superconductivity. Although theorists had predicted the reason for the unusual properties of the material, known as a kagome metal, this is the first time that the phenomenon behind those properties has been observed in…

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

A team led by researchers from the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA has designed a unique material based on a conventional superconductor—that is, a substance that enables electrons to travel through it with zero resistance under certain conditions, such as extremely low temperature. The experimental material showed properties signaling its potential for use in quantum computing, a developing technology…

Researchers from Skoltech, Jilin University and Beijing HPSTAR in China, and their German colleagues have synthesized and studied a new type of hydrogen-rich superconductor. Technically referred to as an A15-type lanthanum superhydride, with the formula La4H23, it shows superconductivity below minus 168 degrees Celsius at a pressure of 1.2 million atmospheres. The research results were published in the National…

Vertically stacking two-dimensional (2D) materials to form van der Waals homo- or hetero-structures has become an effective means for regulating their physical and mechanical properties. In particular, when a small twist angle is present at the stacked interface, the 2D structures often show many interesting and even magical physical phenomena owing to the unique interlayer coupling.

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…

Physicists have discovered a material in which atoms are arranged in a way that so frustrates the movement of electrons that they engage in a collective dance where their electronic and magnetic natures appear to both compete and cooperate in unexpected ways.

Insulator or superconductor? MIT physicists find graphene is both, at a "magic angle."

The study of superconductivity is littered with disappointments, dead ends, and serendipitous discoveries, according to Antia Botana, professor of physics at Arizona State University.

For the past century since their discovery, superconductors and their mysterious atomic properties have left researchers in awe. These special materials allow electricity to flow through them without any energy loss. They even allow trains to levitate.

Rice University physicists have shown that immutable topological states, which are highly sought for quantum computing, can be entangled with other manipulable quantum states in some materials.

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.

Topological superconductors are superconducting materials with unique characteristics, including the appearance of so-called in-gap Majorana states. These bound states can serve as qubits, making topological superconductors particularly promising for the creation of quantum computing technologies.

Physicists measured how readily a current of electron pairs flows through "magic-angle" graphene, a major step toward understanding how this unusual material superconducts.

A joint research group from China recently achieved the first observation of intrinsic magnetic structures in a kagome lattice by using the highly sensitive magnetic force microscopy (MFM) system of the Steady High Magnetic Field Facility (SHMFF) as well as electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and micromagnetic simulations.

The element bismuth can "float" between magnets due to magnetic levitation. What's the science behind this phenomenon?

Physicists at Ames National Laboratory have found compelling evidence of unconventional superconductivity in synthetic samples of Rh17S15, which is also found in nature as the mineral miassite.

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.