Unraveling the mystery of superconductivity at high temperatures, specifically in copper oxide materials, remains one of the most puzzling challenges in modern solid-state physics. But an international research team of engineers and scientists may have taken one step closer to understanding.
Superconductors are materials that gain unique physical properties when cooled to extremely low temperatures. They stop resisting an electric current, allowing the current to pass through freely without any loss of energy. Superconductors are used in technologies such as MRI machines, electric motors, wireless communications systems and particle accelerators. While thousands of examples of superconductive materials are known to the scientific community, many questions remain about why and how superconductivity occurs. New research may provide an answer.
A research team that includes Jianshi Zhou, research professor of mechanical engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering and a member of The University of Texas at Austin's Texas Materials Institute, has confirmed the existence of a phase transition at a temperature close to absolute zero degrees, higher than the temperature needed for many superconductors, in copper-oxide-based (or cuprate) superconductive materials. The team believes that it could be during this phase transition, the "quantum critical point," when superconductivity actually occurs. The findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Nature.
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