Artist’s impression of a magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor cooled with liquid nitrogen. When a magnet is placed above a superconductor, the superconductor pushes away the magnetic field, causing the magnet to repel or float. (Credit: ktsdesign/Shutterstock)
Artist's impression of a magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor cooled with liquid nitrogen. When a magnet is placed above a superconductor, the superconductor pushes away the magnetic field, causing the magnet to repel or float. (Credit: ktsdesign/Shutterstock) - Study leverages one of the most powerful magnets on Earth to probe a new model of a mysterious metal A research team has uncovered new clues into the exotic behavior of unconventional superconductors - devices that efficiently carry electrical current with zero resistance in ways that defy our previous understanding of physics. "The hope is that our work may lead to a better understanding of superconductivity, which could find applications in next-gen energy storage, supercomputing, and magnetic levitation trains,” said first author Nikola Maksimovic, a graduate student researcher in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley's Physics Department. The work could also help researchers design more powerful superconducting materials by tuning their chemical makeup at the atomic level. The team, led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ÜBerkeley Lab) in collaboration with UC Berkeley, reported their findings. Conventional superconducting materials like lead or tin become superconducting at temperatures close to zero on the Kelvin scale, or minus 523.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
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