Since their discovery by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911, superconductors (materials with zero electrical resistance) have formed the foundation of some of the most groundbreaking technologies on the planet—from MRI machines to fusion reactors. However, superconductors come with one well-known limitation: they only exist near temperatures approaching absolute zero.
Progress in the ensuing century has slowly raised that temperature threshold—some copper oxides, for example, can be superconductors north of 130 Kelvin (or -225 degrees Fahrenheit). But these super-cold temperatures still limit the technology’s widespread adoption.
What the world really needs is a material that acts as a superconductor at room temperature (and, ideally, ambient pressure), but that’s easier said than done. In the past few years, scientists have made bold claims of finding these “holy grail” materials, but none of them have held up to scientific scrutiny. That doesn’t mean, however, that progress isn’t being made.
A new paper published by an international team of scientists has found a new superconducting state known as Cooper-pair density modulation, or PDM. Although this breakthrough has not directly created room-temperature superconductors, it crucially deepens our knowledge about how superconductivity works and furthers our unending search for that wondrous material. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature.
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