A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has discovered how subtle structural changes in strontium titanate, a metal oxide semiconductor, can alter the material’s electrical resistance and affect its superconducting properties. The research can help guide future experiments and materials design related to superconductivity and the creation of more efficient semiconductors for various electronic device applications.
Tag: Superconductivity
After 20 years of trying, scientists succeed in doping a 1D chain of cuprates
After 20 years of trying, scientists doped a 1D copper oxide chain and found a surprisingly strong attraction between electrons that may factor into the material’s superconducting powers.

Tapping into magnets to clamp down on noise in quantum information
In a newly funded project, Argonne and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will explore coupling magnetism and microwaves. This research will yield new insights that should benefit quantum sensing, data transfer and computing.
Lighting Up Ultrafast Magnetism in a Metal Oxide
Scientists studied what happens when very short pulses of laser light strike a magnetic material. Understanding how magnetic correlations change over short timescales is the first step in being able to control magnetism for applications.
Mapping the Electronic States in an Exotic Superconductor
Scientists mapped the electronic states in an exotic superconductor. The maps point to the composition range necessary for topological superconductivity, a state that could enable more robust quantum computing.
New 2D superconductor forms at higher temperatures than ever before
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a new way to generate 2D superconductivity at an interface of an insulating oxide material, at a higher transition temperature than ever seen before for these materials.
Scientists glimpse signs of a puzzling state of matter in a superconductor
High-temperature superconductors conduct electricity with no loss, but no one knows how they do it. SLAC scientists observed the signature of an exotic state of matter called “pair density waves” in a cuprate superconductor and confirmed that it intertwines with another exotic state.

Magnetism Meets Topology on a Superconductor’s Surface
Scientists have found an energy band gap—an energy range where no electrons are allowed—opens at a point where two allowed energy bands intersect on the surface of an iron-based superconductor. This unusual electronic energy structure could be used for quantum information science and electronics.

Copperizing the Complexity of Superconductivity
Copper oxides have the highest superconducting transition temperatures under normal conditions, but physicists aren’t sure why. A group of international researchers may have stumbled upon a major clue that could help revolutionize our understanding of these superconductive materials.

The Room-Temperature Superconductor Arrives at Last
For the first time since superconductivity was discovered in 1911, scientists have created the world’s first superconductor that works at room temperature. To do so, they engineered a new material never before found on earth using a photochemical process to create a starting framework of hydrogen-rich materials. The finding has important implications for quantum computing and energy storage and production.

Brookhaven’s Ivan Bozovic Wins 2021 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials
The American Physical Society has selected physicist Ivan Bozovic of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory as a co-recipient of the 2021 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials. Bozovic and his collaborators were recognized “For pioneering the atomic-layer-by-layer synthesis of new metastable complex-oxide materials, and the discovery of resulting novel phenomena.”

New composite material revs up pursuit of advanced electric vehicles
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used new techniques to create a composite that increases the electrical current capacity of copper wires, providing a new material that can be scaled for use in ultra-efficient, power-dense electric vehicle traction motors.

SLAC researchers find evidence for quantum fluctuations near a quantum critical point in a superconductor
Theory suggests that quantum critical points may be analogous to black holes as places where all sorts of strange phenomena can exist in a quantum material. Now scientists say that they have found strong evidence that QCPs and their associated fluctuations exist in a cuprate superconductor.

Quantum Materials Quest Could Benefit From Graphene That Buckles
Graphene, an extremely thin two-dimensional layer of the graphite used in pencils, buckles when cooled while attached to a flat surface, resulting in beautiful pucker patterns that could benefit the search for novel quantum materials and superconductors, according to Rutgers-led research in the journal Nature. Quantum materials host strongly interacting electrons with special properties, such as entangled trajectories, that could provide building blocks for super-fast quantum computers. They also can become superconductors that could slash energy consumption by making power transmission and electronic devices more efficient.
Physicists Find Misaligned Carbon Sheets Yield Unparalleled Properties
A material composed of two one-atom-thick layers of carbon has grabbed the attention of physicists worldwide for its intriguing — and potentially exploitable — conductive properties.

New Advances in Superconductivity
The goal of room temperature superconductivity took a small step forward with a recent discovery by a team of Penn State physicists and materials scientists.

Electrons Line Dance in a Superconductor
Scientists have confirmed a theoretical prediction for high-temperature superconductors. In a superconductive state, like-charged electrons overcome their repulsion to pair up and flow freely. Different states of matter make superconductivity possible. One of those theorized states of matter is called a pair density wave. The scientists confirmed pair density waves using advanced microscopic imaging techniques.
Scientists Dive Deep Into Hidden World of Quantum States
A research team led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed a technique that could lead to new electronic materials that surpass the limitations imposed by Moore’s Law.

Theoretical breakthrough shows quantum fluids rotate by corkscrew mechanism
Scientists performed simulations of merging rotating superfluids, revealing a peculiar corkscrew-shaped mechanism that drives the fluids into rotation without the need for viscosity.

Electrons Break Rotational Symmetry in Exotic Low-Temp Superconductor
This odd behavior may promote the material’s ability upon cooling to perfectly conduct electricity in a way unexplained by standard theories.

Scientists Observe Superconductivity in Two Meteorites
Researchers from UC San Diego and Brookhaven Laboratory in New York investigated a diverse population of meteorites. Among the 15 pieces of comets and asteroids studied, they found two with superconductive grains.

Argonne’s Valerii Vinokur awarded Fritz London Prize
Valerii Vinokur, a senior scientist and distinguished fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has been awarded the Fritz London Memorial Prize for his work in condensed matter and theoretical physics.

How a Magnet Could Help Boost Understanding of Superconductivity
Physicists have unraveled a mystery behind the strange behavior of electrons in a ferromagnet, a finding that could eventually help develop high temperature superconductivity. A Rutgers co-authored study of the unusual ferromagnetic material appears in the journal Nature.

A joint venture at the nanoscale
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory report fabricating and testing a superconducting nanowire device applicable to high-speed photon counting. This pivotal invention will allow nuclear physics experiments that were previously thought impossible.
Argonne delivers first cryomodule for Fermilab neutrino experiment accelerator
Through a collaboration with DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne is supplying the first eight of 116 superconducting cavities that will create a stream of neutrinos for Fermilab’s Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).