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New Superconductive Materials Have Just Been Discovered


Three exotic new species of superconductivity were spotted last year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.

Jie Shan and Kin Fai Mak, an academic power couple who run a lab at Cornell University, had been searching for superconductivity in TMDs since Jarillo-Herrero’s blockbuster twisted-graphene discovery in 2018. Last year, Ju’s group made a splash when they placed a five-layer graphene flake on an insulator at a twisted angle and observed a rare electron behavior that normally requires a strong magnetic field to induce. Being able to directly see what happens when they add more electrons to a material or slightly weaken its electric field lets physicists quickly try out an unprecedented number of recipes and see which ones lead to superconductivity.

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