Breaking through the quantum limit
Andrey Geim of the Universities of Nijmegen and Manchester, and co-workers from Russia, Belgium and the UK, measured the amount of flux entering micron-sized aluminium discs, where edge effects are im...
Organic superconductivity
Hendrik Schon, Christian Kloc and Batlogg investigated three different acenes: anthracene (which contains three linked rings), tetracene (four) and pentacene (five). The crystals are normally insulati...
Superconducting gains
The device has three electrodes: a niobium injector electrode; a common electrode that consists of a layer of niobium and a layer of aluminium; and a niobium detector electrode. The electrodes are sep...
Schrodinger’s cat comes into view
In his original thought experiment, Schrodinger imagined that a cat is locked in a box, along with a radioactive atom that is connected to a vial containing a deadly poison. If the atom decays, it cau...
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...
