http://www.physorg.com/physics-news/superconductivity/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on superconductivity (PhysOrg.com) -- Using precision techniques for making superconducting thin films layer-by-layer, physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a single layer responsible for one such material's ability to become superconducting, i.e., carry electrical current with no energy loss. The technique, described in the October 30, 2009, issue of Science, could be used to engineer ultrathin films with "tunable" superconductivity for higher-efficiency electronic devices. http://www.physorg.com/news176045082.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:25:20 EST news176045082 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have a long and unsuccessful history of attempting to convert hydrogen to a metal by squeezing it under incredibly high and steady pressures. http://www.physorg.com/news173975824.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:38:07 EST news173975824 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of U.S. and Japanese scientists has shown for the first time that the spectroscopic "fingerprint" of high-temperature superconductivity remains intact well above the super chilly temperatures at which these materials carry current with no resistance. This confirms that certain conditions necessary for superconductivity exist at the warmer temperatures that would make these materials practical for energy-saving applications - if scientists can figure out how to get the current flowing. http://www.physorg.com/news170602115.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:29:39 EST news170602115 (PhysOrg.com) -- Conquering one of the biggest challenges in the study of high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy`s Brookhaven National Laboratory have grown crystals of one such material that are large enough to directly measure the material`s magnetic properties. These measurements, published online on August 2 by Nature Physics, cast considerable doubt on some assumptions commonly made in trying to understand the role magnetism plays in these materials` ability to carry current with no resistance. Such materials promise more-efficient, lower-cost energy transmission if they can be made to operate under real-world conditions. http://www.physorg.com/news168529619.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:47:39 EST news168529619 (PhysOrg.com) -- A Princeton-led research team has revealed surprising information about how electron behavior influences the conduction of electricity in a class of high-temperature superconductors. An increased understanding of this mechanism could one day transform a number of technologies, including the transmission of electrical power. http://www.physorg.com/news165511195.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:20:36 EST news165511195 Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have discovered that a reduction in mechanical strain at the boundaries of crystal grains can significantly improve the performance of high-temperature superconductors (HTS). Their results* could lead to lower cost and significantly improved performance of superconductors in a wide variety of applications, such as power transmission, power grid reliability and advanced physics research. http://www.physorg.com/news164457791.html Physics - Superconductivity Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:10:02 EST news164457791 A superconducting sheet of lead only two atoms thick, the thinnest superconducting metal layer ever created, has been developed by physicists at The University of Texas at Austin. http://www.physorg.com/news163676931.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:49:24 EST news163676931 (PhysOrg.com) -- Though a year has passed since the discovery of a new family of high-temperature superconductors, a viable explanation for the iron-based materials` unusual talent remains elusive. But a team of scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may be close to the answer. http://www.physorg.com/news156615918.html Physics - Superconductivity Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:25:47 EST news156615918 (PhysOrg.com) -- Recently, an international group of researchers discovered that the underlying mechanism producing high-temperature superconductivity in a widely studied class of copper-oxygen-based superconductors may be different than scientists have long been assuming. http://www.physorg.com/news156523499.html Physics - Superconductivity Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:45:29 EST news156523499 (PhysOrg.com) -- Traditionally, magnetism and superconductivity don't mix. For more than 20 years, the only known superconductors that worked at so-called "high" temperatures (above 30 K, or about -406 degrees Fahrenheit) were almost all based on copper. Materials with strong magnetism, scientists thought, would disrupt the pairing of electrons that is key to achieving the frictionless flow of superconductivity. So when a group of researchers recently found high-temperature superconductivity present in a class of iron-based materials, their discovery shocked and excited the scientific community. http://www.physorg.com/news155494328.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:52:46 EST news155494328 (PhysOrg.com) -- The paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) by a team led by professor Francesc Illas of the University of Barcelona's Department of Physical Chemistry and director of the Laboratory of Computational Materials Science (CMSL) will help to broaden our understanding of the nature of superconducting materials and of the origin of the superconductivity phenomenon in high critical temperature materials. http://www.physorg.com/news154681879.html Physics - Superconductivity Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:12:11 EST news154681879 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) have found evidence that magnetism is involved in the mechanism behind high temperature superconductivity. http://www.physorg.com/news154538523.html Physics - Superconductivity Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:22:38 EST news154538523 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory used inelastic neutron scattering to show that superconductivity in a new family of iron arsenide superconductors cannot be explained by conventional theories. http://www.physorg.com/news150729937.html Physics - Superconductivity Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:25:37 EST news150729937 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists studying a material that appeared to lose its ability to carry current with no resistance say new measurements reveal that the material is indeed a superconductor - but only in two dimensions. Equally surprising, this new form of 2-D superconductivity emerges at a higher temperature than ordinary 3-D superconductivity in other compositions of the same material. The research, conducted in part at the U.S. Department of Energy`s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, will appear in the November 2008 issue of Physical Review B. http://www.physorg.com/news147363593.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:19:53 EST news147363593 (PhysOrg.com) -- To continue to improve semiconductor devices, such as transistors, which form the backbone of the consumer electronics industry, researchers need to be able to control the movement and density of the electric charge within them. http://www.physorg.com/news146752463.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:34:23 EST news146752463 (PhysOrg.com) -- Like astronomers tweaking images to gain a more detailed glimpse of distant stars, physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have found ways to sharpen images of the energy spectra in high-temperature superconductors - materials that carry electrical current effortlessly when cooled below a certain temperature. These new imaging methods confirm that the electron pairs needed to carry current emerge above the transition temperature, before superconductivity sets in, but only in a particular direction. http://www.physorg.com/news145110552.html Physics - Superconductivity Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:29:12 EST news145110552 When an electrical current passes through a wire it emanates heat - a principle that's found in toasters and incandescent light bulbs. Some materials, at low temperatures, violate this law and carry current without any heat loss. But this seemingly trivial property, superconductivity, is now at the forefront of our understanding of physics. http://www.physorg.com/news140359809.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:50:09 EST news140359809 (Physorg.com) -- Physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with colleagues at institutions in Switzerland and Canada, have observed, for the first time in a single exotic phase, a situation where magnetism and superconductivity are necessary for each other's existence. http://www.physorg.com/news139159195.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:19:55 EST news139159195 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Davis have proposed a new characterization for the bizarre behavior of certain super-cooled materials--many that act as superconductors--which suggests a paradigm shift in the way scientists understand superconductivity. http://www.physorg.com/news136648330.html Physics - Superconductivity Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:52:10 EST news136648330 (PhysOrg.com) -- MIT physicists believe they have identified a mysterious state of matter that has been linked to the phenomenon of high-temperature superconductivity. http://www.physorg.com/news135864149.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:02:29 EST news135864149 Physicists at Rutgers and Columbia universities have gained new insight into the origins of superconductivity - a property of metals where electrical resistance vanishes - by studying exotic chemical compounds that contain neptunium and plutonium. http://www.physorg.com/news135862196.html Physics - Superconductivity Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:29:56 EST news135862196 Scientists at the University of Cambridge have for the first time identified a key component to unravelling the mystery of room temperature superconductivity, according to a paper published in today's edition of the scientific journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news134828104.html Physics - Superconductivity Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:15:04 EST news134828104 For more than 20 years since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity, scientists have been debating the underlying physical mechanism for this exotic phenomenon, which has the potential to revolutionize the electrical power distribution network. http://www.physorg.com/news127056215.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:23:35 EST news127056215 Scientists at Brookhaven Lab have discovered a state of two-dimensional (2D) fluctuating superconductivity in a high-temperature superconductor with a particular arrangement of electrical charges known as "stripes." http://www.physorg.com/news124628116.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:55:16 EST news124628116 One of the biggest mysteries in studying high-temperature (Tc) superconductors - materials that conduct electrical current with no resistance below a certain transition temperature - is the origin of a gap in the energy level of the materials' electronic spectrum. Brookhaven physicist Hongbo Yang presented his latest research on this "pseudogap" on Monday at the American Physical Society meeting. http://www.physorg.com/news124625158.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:05:58 EST news124625158 An international collaboration of researchers led by Morten Ring Eskildsen, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame, has discovered an altogether new way in which superconducting electrons can interact with an applied magnetic field. http://www.physorg.com/news119272244.html Physics - Superconductivity Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:10:44 EST news119272244 A team of Boston College researchers led by Asst. Prof. Vidya Madhavan (Physics) has identified an alternative explanation for the microscopic origins of the `glue` that binds electrons during high-temperature superconductivity, according to results published in the December 13 edition of the scientific journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news117392386.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:59:46 EST news117392386 In their normal state, electrons repel each other because of their charge, but in the state of superconductivity, electrons pair up. John Schlueter, a chemist from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, collaborated with a team of researchers from the University of Oxford to better understand how this unlikely courtship occurs. http://www.physorg.com/news110726933.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:28:53 EST news110726933 When Eric Hudson was introduced to high-temperature superconductivity as a graduate student, it was still, so to speak, a hot topic. http://www.physorg.com/news110726111.html Physics - Superconductivity Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:15:11 EST news110726111 Like the surface motif of a bubble bath, the spatial distribution of a magnetic field penetrating a superconductor can exhibit an intricate, foam-like structure. Ruslan Prozorov at the U.S. Department of Energy`s Ames Laboratory has observed these mystifying, two-dimensional equilibrium patterns in lead samples when the material is in its superconducting state, below 7.2 Kelvin, or minus 446.71 degrees Fahrenheit. http://www.physorg.com/news102912757.html Physics - Superconductivity Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:52:37 EST news102912757