A team has discovered that in a copper-based superconductor there are small areas of weak superconductivity that hold up at higher temperatures when surrounded by other areas of strong superconductivity.

Ordinarily, even the highest-temperature superconductors, materials in which current flows without resistance, require significant cooling before the effect kicks in.

But this breakthrough could mean that researchers have discovered when and how superconductivity comes about in order to try and establish it at room temperature.

This puts us a big step closer to that Holy Grail of a room temperature superconductor.  To read the rest of the article, click here.