Superconductors have long been considered a promising technology for the energy systems of the future. They can conduct electricity without resistance, thus eliminating both conduction losses and waste heat. Up to now, however, superconductors have only been applied in special cases, as in the immensely powerful magnet coils of particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This is because superconductors must be well cooled, down to extremely low temperatures for some materials.
In the future, novel materials with special quantum properties are expected to make superconductivity possible at less frosty and more easily achievable subzero temperatures. A research team led by Zurab Guguchia at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has now provided the first comprehensive characterization of such a quantum material. This should contribute to a detailed understanding of these processes and facilitate the search for technologically usable superconductors. The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.
“Currently, research is being conducted worldwide on novel, unconventional superconductors that exhibit robust superconductivity even at higher temperatures or in strong external magnetic fields,” Guguchia says. The physicist is a research group leader in the PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences and works with his team on the materials of the future.
