National MagLab magnet recognized with R&D 100 award

Engineers and technicians from the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory were recognized with a 2022 R&D 100 Award for the design and construction of the 32 tesla (T) Superconducting Magnet. The R&D 100 recognizes revolutionary ideas in science and technology, and the 32T magnet is the world’s most powerful all-superconducting magnet.

Smaller, stronger magnets could improve devices that harness the fusion power of the sun and stars

PPPL researchers have found a way to build powerful magnets smaller than before, aiding the design and construction of machines that could help the world harness the power of the sun to create electricity without producing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Particle Accelerators May Get a Boost from Oxygen

Scientists have developed a new theoretical model for preparing particle accelerator structures made of niobium metal. The model predicts how oxygen in the thin oxide layer on the surface of the niobium metal moves deeper into the metal during heat treatment. Tests indicate that the treatment should improve accelerator structure performance and make accelerators easier to build.

Physicists Uncover the Secret Behind the Behavior of Unique Superconducting Materials

Scientists using the Summit supercomputer to study superconductors found that negative particles in the superconductors interact strongly with phonons in the materials. This interaction leads to sudden changes in the materials’ behavior, explaining how certain copper-based superconductors work. The findings may lead to a new class of superconducting materials that work at relatively warm temperatures for efficient future electronic devices.

A detailed study of nickelate’s magnetism finds a strong kinship with cuprate superconductors

Are new nickelate superconductors close kin to the original high-temperature superconductors, the cuprates? The first study of their magnetic properties says the answer is yes. Scientists from SLAC, Stanford and Diamond Light Source found important similarities but also subtle differences between the two.

Physicists Crack the Code to Signature Superconductor Kink Using Supercomputing

A team performed simulations on the Summit supercomputer and found that electrons in cuprates interact with phonons much more strongly than was previously thought, leading to experimentally observed “kinks” in the relationship between an electron’s energy and the momentum it carries.

FSU engineers improve performance of high-temperature superconductor wires

Florida State University researchers have discovered a novel way to improve the performance of electrical wires used as high-temperature superconductors (HTS). Researchers used high-resolution scanning electron microscopy to understand how processing methods influence grains in bismuth-based superconducting wires (known as Bi-2212).

New Phenomena for the Design of Future Quantum Devices

Research has shown that the topology of the electronic states in a Weyl semimetal can leave fingerprints on their phonon properties. This happens because of a type of electron-phonon interaction called the Kohn anomaly that impacts how electrons screen phonons through a material. This instability can lead to new electronic properties in materials.

DNA Origami Enables Fabricating Superconducting Nanowires

In AIP Advances, researchers describe how to exploit DNA origami as a platform to build superconducting nanoarchitectures. The structures they built are addressable with nanometric precision that can be used as a template for 3D architectures that are not possible today via conventional fabrication techniques. Inspired by previous works using the DNA molecule as a template for superconducting nanowires, the group took advantage of a recent bioengineering advance known as DNA origami to fold DNA into arbitrary shapes.

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.”

Expert: Why the discovery of a room-temperature superconductor is such huge news

UB’s Eva Zurek, a theoretical chemist, is an expert on high-pressure chemistry and the search for superconductors BUFFALO, N.Y. — After decades of hunting, scientists recently announced the discovery of a room-temperature superconductor — an elusive material that conveys electricity with…

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.

E-waste eating protein creates rare earth elements

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL), have designed a new process, based on a naturally occurring protein, that could extract and purify rare earth elements (REE) from low-grade sources. It could offer a new avenue toward a more diversified and sustainable REE sector for the United States. The protein, lanmodulin, enables a one-step extraction and purification of (REE)s from complex metal mixtures, including electronic waste and coal byproducts.

Scientists See Energy Gap Modulations in a Cuprate Superconductor

Scientists studying high-Tc superconductors at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have definitive evidence for the existence of a state of matter known as a pair density wave–first predicted by theorists some 50 years ago. Their results show that this phase coexists with superconductivity in a well-known bismuth-based copper-oxide superconductor.

First detailed electronic study of new nickelate superconductor finds 3D metallic state

It represents an entirely new type of ground state for transition metal oxides, and opens new directions for experiments and theoretical studies of how superconductivity arises and how it can be optimized in this system and possibly in other compounds.