High-temperature Superconductor Spills Secret: A New Phase of Matter

The few high-temperature superconducting wires on the right conduct as much current as all the copper cables on the left. (Photo courtesy of American Superconductor.)

Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that a puzzling gap in the electronic structures of some high-temperature superconductors could indicate a new phase of matter. Understanding this “pseudogap” has been a 20-year quest for researchers who are trying to control and improve these breakthrough materials, with the ultimate goal of finding superconductors that operate at room temperature. ...

Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency, losing nothing to resistance. Currently used in medical imaging, highly efficient electrical generators and maglev trains, they have the potential to become a truly transformative technology; energy applications would be just one beneficiary. This promise is hampered by one thing, though: they work only at extremely low temperatures. Although research over the past 25 years has developed “high-temperature superconductors” that work at warmer temperatures, even the warmest of them—the cuprates—must be chilled half-way to absolute zero before they will superconduct. ...

via March 24, 2011 - High-temperature Superconductor Spills Secret: A New Phase of Matter.