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Scientists at Cornell discovered a new quantum matter state in Uranium Ditelluride, which could revolutionize quantum computing and spintronics by forming the materials platform for ultra-stable quantum computers and revealing new avenues for identifying such states in various materials. Researchers from Cornell University have identified a new state of matter in candidate topological superconductors, a discovery that may have far-reaching implications for both condensed matter physics and the fields of quantum computing and spintronics. Researchers at the Macroscopic Quantum Matter Group at Cornell have discovered and visualized a crystalline yet superconducting state in a new and unusual superconductor, Uranium Ditelluride...

In a potentially landmark development in the world of superconductor research, scientists at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology have claimed to achieve the first successful replication of the superconducting material LK-99. The announcement came through a video shared five hours ago, that showcases a small flake of their sample reacting to an external magnetic field. This news has sent ripples through the scientific community and industries that stand to be transformed by breakthroughs in superconductivity. As Andrew Cote, a Stellarator Engineer known for his lucid explanations of complex physical phenomena on Twitter (@Andercot), often reminds his followers, room-temperature...

A team of researchers claims to have created the first materials that conduct electricity perfectly at room temperature and ambient pressure, but many physicists are highly sceptical. Speaking to New Scientist, Hyun-Tak Kim at the College of William & Mary in Virginia says he will support anyone trying to replicate his team’s work. Superconductors are materials through which electricity can move without encountering any resistance, and so would significantly cut down the energy costs of electronics. But for over a century, researchers have been unable to make them work except under extreme conditions like very low temperatures and remarkably high...

Quantum machine - Inside the 30-meter tube. (ETH Zurich/Daniel Winkler) Albert Einstein wasn't entirely convinced about quantum mechanics, suggesting our understanding of it was incomplete. In particular, Einstein took issue with entanglement, the notion that a particle could be affected by another particle that wasn't close by. Experiments since have shown that quantum entanglement is indeed possible and that two entangled particles can be connected over a distance. Now a new experiment further confirms it, and in a way we haven't seen before. In the new experiment, scientists used a 30-meter-long tube cooled to close to absolute zero to run...

Scientists at the University of Rochester reported this week that they have taken a big leap toward creating a commercially viable superconductor that operates at room temperature and a low enough level of high pressure to be used in almost any technology that uses electric energy.

Thanks to Red Badger. Graphene is a strange material. Understanding its properties is both a fundamental question of science and a promising avenue for new technologies. A team of researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the Weizmann Institute of Science has studied what happens when they layer four sheets of it on top of each other and how this can lead to new forms of exotic superconductivity. “Multilayered graphene has many promising qualities, ranging from widely tunable band structure and special optical properties to new forms of superconductivity—meaning being able to conduct electrical current without...

The discovery is a step towards much more accessible superconductivity. It may be possible to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature with further knowledge of the relationship between spin liquids and superconductivity, which would transform our daily lives. Superconductors offer enormous technical and economic promise for applications such as high-speed hovertrains, MRI machines, efficient power lines, quantum computing, and other technologies. However, their usefulness is limited since superconductivity requires extremely low temperatures. It is highly challenging to integrate them with modern technology because of this demanding and costly requirement. The electrical resistance of a superconductor has a specific critical...

In 2020, Ranga Dias, a physicist at the University of Rochester, and his colleagues published a sensational result in Nature, featured on its cover. They claimed to have discovered a room-temperature superconductor: a material in which electric current flows frictionlessly without any need for special cooling systems. Although it was just a speck of carbon, sulfur, and hydrogen forged under extreme pressures, the hope was that someday the material would lead to variants that would enable lossless electricity grids and inexpensive magnets for MRI machines, maglev railways, atom smashers, and fusion reactors. On Monday Nature retracted the study, citing data...

The motion of single atoms through liquid has been caught on camera for the first time. Using a sandwich of materials so thin they're effectively two-dimensional, scientists trapped and observed platinum atoms 'swimming' along a surface under different pressures. The results will help us better understand how the presence of liquid alters the behavior of a solid with which it is in contact – which, in turn, has implications that could in the development of new substances and materials. "Given the widespread industrial and scientific importance of such behavior it is truly surprising how much we still have to learn...

It has long been known that there are two types of excitation for electrons, as in addition to their charge they have a property called spin. Spin and charge excitations travel at fixed, but different speeds...However, theorists are unable to calculate what precisely happens beyond only small perturbations, as the interactions are too complex. The Cambridge team has measured these speeds as their energies are varied, and find that a very simple picture emerges...Each type of excitation can have low or high kinetic energy... with the well-known formula E=1/2 mv2, which is a parabola. But for spin and charge the...

Associate professor Mazhar Ali and his research group at TU Delft have discovered one-way superconductivity without magnetic fields, something that was thought to be impossible ever since its discovery in 1911 – up till now. The discovery, published in Nature, makes use of 2D quantum materials and paves the way towards superconducting computing. Superconductors can make electronics hundreds of times faster, all with zero energy loss. Ali: “If the 20th century was the century of semi-conductors, the 21st can become the century of the superconductor.” During the 20th century many scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, have puzzled over the nature...

A visualization of the zero-energy electronic states – also known as a ‘Fermi surface’ – from the kagome material studied by MIT’s Riccardo Comin and colleagues. Credit: Comin Laboratory, MIT ************************************************************************** Work will aid design of other unusual quantum materials with many potential applications. MIT physicists and colleagues have discovered the “secret sauce” behind some of the exotic properties of a new quantum material that has transfixed physicists due to those properties, which include superconductivity. Although theorists had predicted the reason for the unusual properties of the material, known as a kagome metal, this is the first time that the...

A new discovery could help scientists to understand “strange metals,” a class of materials that are related to high-temperature superconductors and share fundamental quantum attributes with black holes. Scientists understand quite well how temperature affects electrical conductance in most everyday metals like copper or silver. But in recent years, researchers have turned their attention to a class of materials that do not seem to follow the traditional electrical rules. Understanding these so-called “strange metals” could provide fundamental insights into the quantum world, and potentially help scientists understand strange phenomena like high-temperature superconductivity. Now, a research team co-led by a Brown...

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei in the east Chinese province of Anhui reports a new temperature record. At the end of last year, a plasma temperature of 70 million ° C could be maintained in the experimental nuclear fusion reactor for 1056 seconds, i.e. a good 17 minutes, reports the Institute for Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP). That is the longest time in which such a temperature could be kept constant. This creates a solid basis for further research into energy generation from nuclear fusion, writes the ASIPP. Its general director Prof. Yuntao...

MIT breaks magnetic field strength records, paving the way for practical, commercial, carbon-free power. Project achieves major advance toward fusion energy SOURCE — MIT It was a moment three years in the making, based on intensive research and design work: On Sept. 5, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it...

It was a moment three years in the making, based on intensive research and design work: On Sept. 5, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world's first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes, according to the project's leaders at MIT and startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). That advance paves the way, they say, for the...

The future of clean energy appears to be on the horizon. After three years of intensive research, a team led by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ramped up a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet to generate a record-breaking magnetic field with a strength of 20 teslas, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth.The MIT scientists collaborated with Cambridge and the Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) to create the world’s strongest fusion magnet, tested at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the test, it generated a strong magnetic...

The central principle of superconductivity is that electrons form pairs. But can they also condense into foursomes? Recent findings have suggested they can, and a physicist at KTH Royal Institute of Technology today published the first experimental evidence of this quadrupling effect and the mechanism by which this state of matter occurs. Reporting in Nature Physics, Professor Egor Babaev and collaborators presented evidence of fermion quadrupling in a series of experimental measurements on the iron-based material, Ba1−xKxFe2As2. The results follow nearly 20 years after Babaev first predicted this kind of phenomenon, and eight years after he published a paper predicting...

A Super New Theory to Explain Superconductivity By UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA JULY 10, 2021 Electricity Superconductivity Concept A researcher at the University of Tsukuba introduces a new theoretical model of high-temperature superconductivity, in which electrical current can flow with zero resistance, which may lead to extremely efficient energy generation and transmission. A scientist from the Division of Quantum Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Tsukuba has formulated a new theory of superconductivity. Based on the calculation of the “Berry connection,” this model helps explain new experimental results better than the current theory. The work may allow future electrical grids...

Superconductivity is a complete loss of electrical resistance. Superconductors are not merely very good metals: it is a fundamentally different electronic state. In normal metals, electrons move individually, and they collide with defects and vibrations in the lattice. In superconductors, electrons are bound together by an attractive force, which allows them to move together in a correlated way and avoid defects. In a very small number of known superconductors, the onset of superconductivity causes spontaneous electrical currents to flow. These currents are very different from those in a normal metal wire: they are built into the ground state of the...