{"id":234468,"date":"2026-04-02T06:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/superconductivity-switched-on-in-material-once-thought-only-magnetic"},"modified":"2026-04-02T06:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:30:19","slug":"superconductivity-switched-on-in-material-once-thought-only-magnetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/superconductivity-switched-on-in-material-once-thought-only-magnetic","title":{"rendered":"Superconductivity switched on in material once thought only magnetic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/superconductivity-switched-on-in-material-once-thought-only-magnetic.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Superconductivity\u2014the ability of a material to conduct electricity without any energy loss to heat\u2014enables highly efficient, ultra-fast electronics essential for advanced technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, particle accelerators and, potentially, quantum computers. New research has now revealed that iron telluride (FeTe), a compound composed of the chemical elements iron and tellurium and long thought to be an ordinary magnetic metal, is in fact a superconductor. The researchers found that hidden excess iron atoms induce the material\u2019s magnetism, and removing these atoms allows electricity to flow with zero resistance.<\/p>\n<p>Two papers describing the research, both led by Penn State Professor of Physics Cui-Zu Chang, were published back-to-back today (April 1) in the journal <i>Nature<\/i>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41586-026-10321-0\" target=\"_blank\">first paper<\/a> focuses on how to \u201cswitch on\u201d superconductivity in FeTe, while the <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41586-026-10325-w\" target=\"_blank\">second paper<\/a> reveals a new kind of \u201cquantum dance,\u201d where superconductivity interacts with the material\u2019s atomic structure when a different top layer is added, allowing researchers to tune its behavior.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnlike the well-known iron-based superconductor iron selenide (FeSe), FeTe has long been considered a magnetic metal without superconductivity, despite having an almost identical crystal structure,\u201d Chang said. \u201cIt has remained a mystery why FeTe doesn\u2019t share this important property.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Superconductivity\u2014the ability of a material to conduct electricity without any energy loss to heat\u2014enables highly efficient, ultra-fast electronics essential for advanced technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, particle accelerators and, potentially, quantum computers. New research has now revealed that iron telluride (FeTe), a compound composed of the chemical elements iron and tellurium and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,1523,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-computing","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}