Carbon-60 and the ultimate switch
Most materials only become superconducting when they are cooled to low temperatures. In this state the electrons inside the material overcome their natural repulsion and travel through the material in...
New evidence for superconducting stripes
The neutron scattering experiments were carried out by Herb Mook from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and colleagues, while the ion channelling experiments were performed by Rajeshwar Sharma from th...
Read article: Industry warms to superconductors
Industry warms to superconductors
While theorists have been battling to understand high-temperature superconductivity, industry is developing devices ready for a global marketplace potentially worth billions of dollars
Read article: The underdoped phase of cuprate superconductors
The underdoped phase of cuprate superconductors
The origin of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprate materials is one of the biggest puzzles in physics, explain Bertram Batlogg and Chandra Varma
Read article: Explaining high-Tc superconductors
Explaining high-Tc superconductors
Even a decade and a half after the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic compounds containing copper-oxide planes, these materials continue to puzzle condensed-matter theorists. T...
Read article: Superconductor stripes move on
Superconductor stripes move on
There is an old joke about a farmer who has a hen that will not lay eggs. After consulting unsuccessfully with a biologist, and then a chemist, he finally turns to a theoretical physicist. Several day...
Can spin fluctuations explain superconductivity?
Superconductivity happens when the charge carriers overcome their mutual repulsion and bind together into Cooper pairs. In low-temperature superconductors phonons – quantized vibrations of the c...
Scientists see electron orbits
In copper oxide each of the copper atoms is expected to bond with two oxygen atoms. According to some theories however, the copper atoms can covalently bond with each other. Such bonds – in whic...
First for single-photon measurements
Photons are traditionally detected by converting their energy into an electric signal, which destroys the photon in the process. An additional problem in quantum measurements is that if one variable &...
Quasicrystals clinch Wolf prize
Quasicrystals are materials that do not have a periodic lattice structure but still display subtle long-range order, such as “five-fold” symmetry, that is not possible in regular crystals....
