#superconductivity
Atomic-level flyovers show how impact sites of high-energy ions pin potentially disruptive vortices to keep high-current superconductivity flowing. High-energy gold ions impact the crystal surface from above at the sites indicated schematically by dashed circles. Measurement of the strength of…
A tiny instrument to measure the faintest magnetic fields
Physicists at the University of Basel have developed a minuscule instrument able to detect extremely faint magnetic fields. At the heart of the superconducting quantum interference device are two atomically thin layers of graphene, which the researchers combined with boron nitride. Instruments like this one have applications in areas such as medicine, besides being used to research new materials.
To measure very small magnetic fields, researchers often use superconducting quantum interference devices, or SQUIDs. In medicine, their uses include monitoring brain or heart activity, for example, while in the earth sciences researchers use SQUIDs to characterize the composition of rocks or detect groundwater flows. The devices also have a broad range of uses in other applied fields and basic research.
The team led by Professor Christian Schönenberger of the University of Basel’s Department of Physics and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute has now succeeded in creating one of the smallest SQUIDs ever built. The researchers described their achievement in the scientific journal Nano Letters.
Physicists Figure Out A New Property Of Superconductivity
Physicists have found a property of superconductivity that may help scientists develop working superconductors at room temperature.
A new study by The University of Waterloo—published in Science—has revealed important details about what occurs during high-temperature superconductivity. The researchers were able to obtain evidence that indicated the presence of electron nematicity, a state in which electron clouds go into an aligned and directional order, in certain types of high-temperature superconductors.
Image: Simulation of Correlated Electrons for Superconducting Materials. Lucas K. Wagner, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Argonne National Laboratory.
See also
Newly discovered superconductor state opens a window to the evolution of the universe