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CeCoIn5 is an oxymoron. It's a "heavy fermion" material, in which electrons act like their mass is 1,000 times what it should be, because moving electrons interact magnetically with its atoms and slow down. But it also can be a superconductor, in which an electric current flows without resistance, when its super heavy electrons join in "Cooper pairs" that are magnetically neutral and avoid magnetic interference. Since this and other heavy fermion materials were first observed some 30 years ago, scientists have been trying to figure out how this works; the answer could lead to high-temperature superconductors and a revolution in electrical engineering. Now Cornell researchers have, figuratively and literally, turned a microscope on the stuff and pried out its innermost secrets. Their Next it's up to the theorists, said J.C. Séamus Davis, the James Gilbert White Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell and director of the Center for Emergent Superconductivity at Brookhaven National Laboratory. "We pretty much have enough information by comparing copper, iron, and now heavy fermion materials, to discern the fundamentals of high-temperature superconductivity," Davis said.
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