Scientists using one of the world's most powerful quantum microscopes have made a discovery that could have significant consequences for the future of computing.
Researchers at the Macroscopic Quantum Matter Group laboratory in University College Cork (UCC) have discovered a spatially modulating superconducting state in a new and unusual superconductor, uranium ditelluride (UTe2). This new superconductor may provide a solution to one of quantum computing's greatest challenges. Their findings have been published in Nature.
Lead author Joe Carroll, a Ph.D. researcher working with UCC Prof. of Quantum Physics Séamus Davis, explains the subject of the paper.
"Superconductors are amazing materials which have many strange and unusual properties. Most famously they allow electricity to flow with zero resistance. That is, if you pass a current through them they don't start to heat up, in fact, they don't dissipate any energy despite carrying a huge current. They can do this because instead of individual electrons moving through the metal we have pairs of electrons which bind together. These pairs of electrons together form macroscopic quantum mechanical fluid."
"What our team found was that some of the electron pairs form a new crystal structure embedded in this background fluid. These types of states were first discovered by our group in 2016 and are now called Electron Pair-Density Waves. These Pair Density Waves are a new form of superconducting matter the properties of which we are still discovering."
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