It sits behind so much dust that it is essentially invisible in ordinary optical images.
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Picosecond pulses push superconductors beyond their critical-current limit
Superconductors can carry electrical current without resistance, but only up to a maximum value known as the critical current. The critical current is a crucial figure of merit for applications, and materials science has long been focused on increasing this limit. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) have now shown that, in type-II superconductors, this conventional limit can be exceeded when the current is applied for only a few picoseconds.
On these ultrashort timescales, the researchers were able to access a much higher, intrinsic limit known as the depairing current. The work has now been published in Nature Physics.
Superconductivity is one of the most striking collective phenomena in quantum materials. When certain materials are cooled below a characteristic transition temperature, their electrical resistance vanishes, and electric current can flow without dissipating energy as heat. This unusual behavior arises because electrons form correlated pairs, known as Cooper pairs, which move collectively through the material like a wave. Superconductors are therefore attractive for technologies ranging from powerful magnets and sensitive detectors to quantum circuits.
A fusion magnet system of 44 superconducting coils peaked at 13.7 tesla
If you’ve ever had an MRI, you’ve been inside the strongest magnet most people will ever get near. Those machines run at about 1.5 to 3 tesla, and hospitals respect them enough to screen every paperclip that enters the room. So when a fusion company outside Oxford, England, says its magnet system peaked at 13.7 tesla and held together, that number’s earned a second of your attention.
The company is Tokamak Energy, and the system is called Demo4: 44 superconducting coils arranged the way they’d wrap around a spherical tokamak, the squashed version of the classic donut-shaped fusion reactor, plus the cooling, power and control gear needed to run them as one machine. Tokamak Energy announced on September 9 that it had finished a 14-month test campaign on the whole assembly. And honestly, the 13.7 tesla wasn’t the number that got me. Demo4 spent roughly 10,000 hours energized over those 14 months, by the company’s count, including long stretches at high field.
Broadcom AI Semiconductor Revenue Just Crossed 56% Of Total Sales
Broadcom reported Q3 FY2026 revenue of $29.59 billion on September 2, with **Broadcom AI semiconductor revenue** hitting $16.7 billion — up 221% year over year and now 56.4% of total revenue. Q4 guidance puts AI at $21.7 billion, or 62.4% of the business. The company projects AI revenue doubling to $115 billion in fiscal 2027 and potentially $230 billion by 2028. For procurement teams, the signal is structural: the company that makes the custom chips powering AI infrastructure is now an AI company first, and its capacity allocation decisions will shape what industrial buyers can actually get.
Broadcom AI semiconductor revenue stopped being a growth story and became the core business this quarter. The company reported Q3 FY2026 results on September 2, showing total revenue of $29.59 billion, up 86% year over year. Within that, AI semiconductor revenue reached $16.7 billion, a 221% year-over-year increase and a 54% sequential jump.
That figure now represents 56.4% of total revenue and 80.1% of Broadcom’s semiconductor solutions segment. The company guided Q4 AI semiconductor revenue to $21.7 billion, which would be 62.4% of total revenue — a new record and a further 5.9 percentage point increase from Q3.