In 2008, an international team of scientists studying an exotic new superconductor based on the element ytterbium reported that it displays unusual properties that could change how scientists understand and create materials for superconductors and the electronics used in computing and data storage.
But a key characteristic that explains the material's unusual properties remained tantalizingly out of reach in spite of the scientists' rigorous battery of experiments and exacting measurements. So members of that team from the University of Tokyo reached out to theoretical physicists at Rutgers University to help uncover the material's secrets.
In a paper published Jan. 21 in the journal Science, the Tokyo and Rutgers researchers now report that the material can reach a point where seemingly contradictory electrical and magnetic properties coexist, without being subject to massive changes in pressure, magnetic fields, or chemical impurities.
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