When physicists Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Muller discovered the first high-temperature superconductors in 1986, it didn't take much imagination to envision the potential technological benefits of harnessing such materials.
High-temperature superconductors are materials that can transport electricity with perfect efficiency at or near liquid nitrogen temperatures (-196 degrees Celsius). Though their operating temperature may seem cold, they're a summer afternoon in the tropics compared to their previously known brethren, so-called conventional superconductors, which operate at temperatures near absolute zero (-273.15 degrees Celsius).
Hyperefficient electricity transmission could revolutionize power grids and electronic devices, enabling a wide range of new technologies. That future energy economy, however, is predicated on advancements in the understanding of how high-temperature superconductors work at the microscopic level.
Since this discovery, scientists have been working to develop a theory that explains the essential physics of high-temperature superconductors like copper oxides, called cuprates. A sound theory would not only explain why a material superconducts at high temperatures but also suggest other materials that could be created to superconduct at temperatures closer to room temperature.
At the heart of this mystery is the behavior of high-temperature superconductors' electrons in their normal state (i.e., before they become superconducting). A team led by Thomas Maier of the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) used the Titan supercomputer at ORNL to simulate cuprates on the path to superconductivity. Titan, America's fastest supercomputer for open science, is the flagship machine of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
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