Researchers took a step in the right direction for creating practical superconductors.
A team of scientists discovered two very different iron compounds were able to move electrons using a common mechanism, a Rice University news release reported.
Pnictides and chalcogenides use similar methods of coupling electrons in a superconductive state, and this could lead to the discovery of "even better superconductors."
Researchers have been working tirelessly towards superconductivity ("the ability of electrons to travel through a material with no resistance and producing no heat"), but it has been a tough battle.
Rice physicist Qimiao Si believes superconductors could make huge strides in "power generation and distribution," as well as "transportation, computing, medical imaging and more."
Superconductivity is tricky because it requires perfect materials with electrons in a perfect state. This depends largely on the material's temperature and how the atoms (especially the electrons) arrange themselves. The researchers analyzed the iron compounds to observe the inner workings of the Mott transition (the transition of metal to nonmetal) and the electron spin from magnetism.
"Historically, magnetism has been considered detrimental to superconductivity," Si said. "We think of magnets sticking to the fridge and superconductors as living in entirely different worlds. And, in fact, the conventional theory of solids treats these two phenomena completely differently."
"That reinforced the notion that the two decouple. But in iron pnictides and chalcogenides, as well as some other materials, magnetism often comes hand in hand with superconductivity. That led us to ask the question: In which regime of this electron coupling could one find optimized superconductivity?" Si said.
The team was able to determine how "electron spins and iron-based compounds drive conductivity."
"Ironically, this regime of electron correlation produces poor electrical conduction above the superconducting transition temperature, so the optimized superconductivity arises out of a bad metal," Rong Yu, "a co-author of the paper who was a postdoctoral fellow at Rice until this summer, when he became an associate professor at Renmin University in Beijing."
The team hoped to explain "how superconductivity peaks of the two doped iron compounds have comparable transition temperatures, as has been observed experimentally."
"The chalcogenides, in many regards, are different from the pnictides but have a superconductive transition temperature just as high. That was a major surprise in the field," Si said.
As of right now superconductors must be kept cold, but it is a dream of scientists to achieve it in room temperature.
