Exotic new superconductors delight and confound
(quantamagazine.org)
This year, superconductivity — the flow of electric current with zero resistance — was discovered in three distinct materials. Two instances stretch the textbook understanding of the phenomenon. The third shreds it completely. “It’s an extremely unusual form of superconductivity that a lot of people would have said is not possible,” said Ashvin Vishwanath, a physicist at Harvard University who was not involved in the discoveries.
This year, superconductivity — the flow of electric current with zero resistance — was discovered in three distinct materials. Two instances stretch the textbook understanding of the phenomenon. The third shreds it completely. “It’s an extremely unusual form of superconductivity that a lot of people would have said is not possible,” said Ashvin Vishwanath, a physicist at Harvard University who was not involved in the discoveries.