For more than 30 years, a record in science held firm: minus 220 degrees Fahrenheit. It defined the highest achieved temperature for any material to become superconducting — able to carry electricity with no resistance — without the need for crushing pressures. In a field known for slow, steady progress, the record had come to seem almost immovable.
That limit has always been daunting because most known superconductors work only at temperatures close to absolute zero — hundreds of degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Keeping materials so ultracold requires complex and costly cooling systems. This limits where and how these materials can be applied to niche technologies, like MRI scanners and particle accelerators.
Now the record has shifted. Researchers from the University of Houston and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have raised that temperature by 30 degrees, to minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit. They did so with a carefully designed oxide made of mercury, barium, calcium and copper, known as a cuprate superconductor.
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