In the search for understanding how some magnetic materials can be transformed to carry electric current with no energy loss, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell University, and collaborators have made an important advance: Using an experimental technique they developed to measure the energy required for electrons to pair up and how that energy varies with direction, they've identified the factors needed for magnetically mediated superconductivity—as well as those that aren't.
"Our measurements distinguish energy levels as small as one ten-thousandth the energy of a single photon of light—an unprecedented level of precision for electronic matter visualization," said Séamus Davis, Senior Physicist at Brookhaven the J.G. White Distinguished Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell, who led the research described in Nature Physics. "This precision was essential to writing down the mathematical equations of a theory that should help us discover the mechanism of magnetic superconductivity, and make it possible to search for or design materials for zero-loss energy applications."
To read more, click here.