http://phys.org/physics-news/superconductivity/ en-us PhysOrg Team Phys.Org provides the latest news on superconductivity Superconductivity, in which electric current flows without resistance, promises huge energy savings – from low-voltage electric grids with no transmission losses, superefficient motors and generators, and myriad other schemes. But such everyday applications still lie in the future, because conventional superconductivity in metals can't do the job. http://phys.org/news257689393.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-05-31T14:00:13-07:00 (Phys.org) -- High-temperature superconductivity doesn't happen all it once. It starts in isolated nanoscale patches that gradually expand until they take over. http://phys.org/news257663971.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-05-31T06:19:54-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Condensed-matter physicists the world over are in hot pursuit of a comprehensive understanding of high-temperature superconductivity, not just for its technological benefits but for the clues it holds to strongly correlated electron systems. http://phys.org/news256548990.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-05-18T08:36:48-07:00 James A. Sauls, professor of physics and astronomy in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, has been awarded the 2012 John Bardeen Prize for his contributions to the theory of unconventional superconductivity. http://phys.org/news255968074.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-05-11T15:14:38-07:00 (Phys.org) -- By measuring how strongly electrons are bound together to form Cooper pairs in an iron-based superconductor, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell University, St. Andrews University, and collaborators provide direct evidence supporting theories in which magnetism holds the key to this material's ability to carry current with no resistance. Because the measurements take into account the electronic bands and directions in which the electrons are traveling, which was central to testing the theoretical predictions, this research strengthens confidence that this type of theory may one day be used to identify or design new materials with improved properties - namely, superconductors operating at temperatures far higher than today's. http://phys.org/news255278543.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-05-03T15:42:47-07:00 A new type of quantum bit called a "phase-slip qubit", devised by researchers at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute and their collaborators, has enabled the world's first-ever experimental demonstration of coherent quantum phase slip (CQPS). The groundbreaking result sheds light on an elusive phenomenon whose existence, a natural outcome of the hundred-year-old theory of superconductivity, has long been speculated, but never actually observed. http://phys.org/news253972313.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-04-18T13:00:21-07:00 An international team that includes University of British Columbia physicists has used ultra-fast laser pulses to identify the microscopic interactions that drive high-temperature superconductivity. http://phys.org/news252248622.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-03-29T14:04:17-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Superconductivity is a rare physical state in which matter is able to conduct electricity -- maintain a flow of electrons -- without any resistance. This phenomenon can only be found in certain materials at low temperatures, or can be induced under chemical and high external pressure conditions. Research to create superconductors at higher temperatures has been ongoing for two decades with the promise of significant impact on electrical transmission. New work from a team including Carnegie's Xiao-Jia Chen and Ho-kwang "Dave" Mao demonstrates unexpected superconductivity in a type of compounds called iron selenium chalcogenides. Their work is published online by Nature on February 22. http://phys.org/news249137214.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-02-22T13:00:10-07:00 Physicist John P. Davis is counting the days until he takes delivery of equipment that will give the University of Alberta the distinction of having the coldest laboratory in Canada.   http://phys.org/news248953691.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-02-20T09:48:17-07:00 Making superconducting nanocircuits with rounded corners will improve their performance, according to John R. Clem, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, and Karl K. Berggren, an associate professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://phys.org/news248422897.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-02-14T06:40:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland has found an iron-based superconductor that operates at the highest known temperature for a material in its class. The discovery inches iron-based superconductors—valued for their ease of manufacturability and other properties—closer to being useful in many practical applications. http://phys.org/news247912967.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-02-08T08:42:58-07:00 For the first time, a superconducting current limiter based on YBCO strip conductors has now been installed at a power plant. At the Boxberg power plant of Vattenfall, the current limiter protects the grid for own consumption that is designed for 12 000 volts and 800 amperes against damage due to short circuits and voltage peaks. The new technology co-developed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and made by Nexans SuperConductors enhances the intrinsic safety of the grid and may help reduce the investment costs of plants. http://phys.org/news245677772.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-01-13T11:49:47-07:00 New evidence this week supports a theory developed five years ago at Rice University to explain the electrical properties of several classes of materials -- including unconventional superconductors -- that have long vexed physicists. http://phys.org/news245484840.html Physics - Superconductivity 2012-01-11T06:14:24-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- It has been 25 years since scientists discovered the first high-temperature superconductors—copper oxides, or cuprates, that conduct electricity without a shred of resistance at temperatures much higher than other superconducting metals. Yet no one has managed to explain why these cuprates are able to superconduct at all. Now, two Caltech chemists have developed a hypothesis to explain the strange behavior of these materials, while also pointing the way to a method for making even higher-temperature superconductors. http://phys.org/news243158821.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-12-15T08:07:19-07:00 A research group at the NIMS International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) has proved that the electrical resistance of a metal single atomic layer on a silicon surface becomes zero by superconductivity. http://phys.org/news241360421.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-11-24T12:34:53-07:00 Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new computational approach to improve the utility of superconductive materials for specific design applications – and have used the approach to solve a key research obstacle for the next-generation superconductor material yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO). http://phys.org/news238931426.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-10-27T10:50:50-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- In this 100th anniversary year of the discovery of superconductivity, physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology have published a fully self-consistent theory of the new kind of superconducting behavior, Type 1.5, this month in the journal Physical Review B. http://phys.org/news238658698.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-10-24T07:05:51-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A video created by researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel has the Internet buzzing. Though rather simple, it just looks really cool, hence all the attention. It’s a demonstration of quantum locking, though to non-science buffs, it looks more like science fiction come to life. In the video a disc, obviously frozen due to the vapor rising from its surface hovers over a surface. http://phys.org/news238231777.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-10-19T08:30:05-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- It's a basic technique learned early, maybe even before kindergarten: Pulling things apart - from toy cars to complicated electronic materials - can reveal a lot about how they work. "That's one way physicists study the things that they love; they do it by destroying them," said Séamus Davis, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and the J.G. White Distinguished Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University. http://phys.org/news238086804.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-10-17T16:13:56-07:00 The ultimately strong electron-electron interaction in metal is realized in the so-called heavy-fermion compound containing rare earth elements, in which the electron effective mass is enhanced by a few hundred times the free electron mass. http://phys.org/news238084196.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-10-17T15:30:28-07:00 Even with today's invisibility cloaks, people can't walk through walls. But, when paired together, millions of electrons can. http://phys.org/news235910051.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-09-22T11:35:01-07:00 By destabilizing superconductivity with a strong magnetic field, the electrons of a "high temperature" superconductor align into linear filaments. This phenomenon has been demonstrated by a team of researchers at the CNRS Laboratoire National des Champs Magnetiques Intenses. Published in Nature on the 8 September 2011, these results add a new piece to the puzzle that condensed-matter physicists have been trying to put together for nearly twenty-five years. http://phys.org/news235125217.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-09-13T09:34:10-07:00 Wiring systems powered by highly-efficient superconductors have long been a dream of science, but researchers have faced such practical challenges such as finding pliable and cost-effective materials. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have found a way to make an old idea new with the next generation of superconductors. http://phys.org/news234586095.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-09-07T03:48:33-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have reached a crucial milestone that could lead to a new class of materials with useful electronic properties. In research reported in the Sept. 5 issue of Nature Physics, the team sandwiched two nonmagnetic insulators together and discovered a startling result: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions – two properties that normally can’t co-exist. http://phys.org/news234426849.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-09-05T07:35:10-07:00 Reporting in Nature Materials this week, researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Physics Department of Sapienza University of Rome have discovered a technique to 'draw' superconducting shapes using an X-ray beam. This ability to create and control tiny superconducting structures has implications for a completely new generation of electronic devices. http://phys.org/news233246406.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-08-22T15:40:40-07:00 Although high-temperature superconductors are widely used in technologies such as MRI machines, explaining the unusual properties of these materials remains an unsolved problem for theoretical physicists. Major progress in this important field has now been reported by physicists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in a pair of papers published back-to-back in the July 29 issue of Physical Review Letters. http://phys.org/news231163120.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-07-29T13:02:46-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists studying the parent compound of a cuprate (copper-oxide) superconductor has discovered a link between two different states, or phases, of that matter - and written a mathematical theory to describe the relationship. This work, appearing in the July 22, 2011, issue of Science, will help scientists predict the material's behavior under varying conditions, and may help explain how it's transformed into a superconductor able to carry current with no energy loss. http://phys.org/news230471473.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-07-21T14:00:53-07:00 If there were a Hall of Fame for materials, manganites would be among its members. Some manganites, compounds of manganese oxides, are renowned for colossal magnetoresistance – the ability to suddenly boost resistance to electrical conductivity by orders of magnitude when a magnetic field is applied – and manganites are also promising candidates for spintronics applications – devices that can manipulate electrons according to their quantum spin as well their charge. http://phys.org/news229941611.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-07-15T09:41:46-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists and chemists use different techniques to study essentially the same thing — the nature and behavior of matter. Usually the particular path is of little consequence, because they all lead ultimately to the same truths at the end of the experimental journey. Sometimes, however, choosing one path over another can offer unique and interesting insights along the way, such as when a traveler takes the scenic route instead of a more direct path. http://phys.org/news229184071.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-07-06T15:16:58-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A high-temperature superconductor can now be switched on and off within a trillionth of a second – 100 years after the discovery of superconductivity and 25 years after the first high-temperature superconductor was. A team including physicists from the University of Oxford and the Max Planck Research Group for Structural Dynamics at the University of Hamburg has realised an ultrafast superconducting switch by using intense terahertz pulses. This experiment opens up the possibility to discover more about the still unsettled cause of this type of superconductivity, and also hints at possible applications for ultrafast electronics in the future. http://phys.org/news229145688.html Physics - Superconductivity 2011-07-06T04:36:29-07:00