Physicists unlock nature of high-temperature superconductivity

Physicists have identified the "quantum glue" that underlies a promising type of superconductivity—a crucial step towards the creation of energy superhighways that conduct electricity without current loss.

The research, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a collaboration between theoretical physicists led by Dirk Morr, professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and experimentalists led by Seamus J.C. Davis of Cornell University and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The earliest superconducting materials required operating temperatures near absolute zero, or −459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. Newer unconventional or "high-temperature" superconductors function at slightly elevated temperatures and seemed to work differently from the first materials. Scientists hoped this difference hinted at the possibility of superconductors that could work at room temperature and be used to create energy superhighways.

Superconductivity arises when two electrons in a material become bound together, forming what is called a Cooper pair. Groundbreaking experiments performed by Freek Massee and Milan Allan in Davis's group were analyzed using a new theoretical framework developed at UIC by Morr and graduate student John Van Dyke, who is first author on the report. Their results pointed to magnetism as the force underlying the superconductivity in an unconventional superconductor consisting of cerium, cobalt and indium, with the molecular formula CeCoIn5.