Puzzling new behaviour observed in high-temperature superconductors

An international team of researchers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University and the Paul Scherrer Institute (Villigen, Switzerland) has observed a new, unexpected kind of behaviour in copper-based high-temperature superconductors – materials that are capable of conducting electric current without any loss when cooled to low enough temperatures. Explaining the new phenomenon - a new, unexpected form of collective movement of the electrical charges in the material - poses a major challenge for the researchers. A success in explaining the phenomenon might be an important step toward understanding high-temperature superconductivity in general. The crucial experiments were conducted at the Paul Scherrer Institute's Swiss Light Source. The results of this project have been published in the journal Nature Physics on 19 October 2014.