Three New Superconductive Materials Were Discovered in 2024

"This year, superconductivity — the flow of electric current with zero resistance — was discovered in three distinct materials," reports Quanta magazine. "Two instances stretch the textbook understanding of the phenomenon. The third shreds it completely...."

After four years of reserch a team at Columbia assembled a "two-sheet device, cooled it down, and watched it superconduct..." A lab at Cornell found "a species of superconductivity that no one had seen coming." And then "Over the summer, a graphene device produced a mythical form of superconductivity: The discoveries stem from a recent revolution in materials science: All three new instances of superconductivity arise in devices assembled from flat sheets of atoms. These materials display unprecedented flexibility; at the touch of a button, physicists can switch them between conducting, insulating, and more exotic behaviors — a modern form of alchemy that has supercharged the hunt for superconductivity. It now seems increasingly likely that diverse causes can give rise to the phenomenon. Just as birds, bees and dragonflies all fly using different wing structures, materials seem to pair electrons together in different ways. Even as researchers debate exactly what's happening in the various two-dimensional materials in question, they anticipate that the growing zoo of superconductors will help them achieve a more universal view of the alluring phenomenon...

[C]ustomizable 2D devices had freed them from the drudgery of designing, growing, and testing new crystals one by one. Researchers would now be able to quickly re-create the effects of many different atomic lattices in a single device and find out exactly what electrons are capable of. The research strategy is now paying off. This year, physicists found the first instances of superconductivity in 2D materials other than graphene, along with a completely novel form of superconductivity in a new graphene system. The discoveries have established that the earlier graphene superconductors mark just the outskirts of a wild new jungle...

The experimentalists are amassing a treasure trove of data for theorists to explain. [Cornell's superconductivity-discovering researchers] Mak and Shan hope that this abundance will let theorists predict ways to create superconductivity that experiments can confirm. That would demonstrate a true understanding of the phenomenon, which would mark both an academic achievement and a key step toward designing materials for revolutionary new technologies.
The article points out that already, superconductivity has "enabled the development of MRI machines and powerful particle colliders.

"If physicists could fully understand how and when the phenomenon arises, perhaps they could engineer a wire that superconducts electricity under everyday conditions rather than exclusively at low temperatures, as is currently the case. World-altering technologies — lossless power grids, magnetically levitating vehicles — might follow."

And a general lesson

[JoshuaZ]

A general lesson from this: we all paid a lot of attention to the claimed LK-99 breakthrough when it happened, but likely most of us paid less attention to these results. It is easy to pay attention to the really big claims and miss the less flashy but still important steady discoveries and improvements in our understanding.

Re:And a general lesson

[ceoyoyo]

It's unfortunate this is the only non-troll comment on this story four hours after it was posted. The scandal stories got hundreds. Not even some guy complaining he can't buy these on Amazon yet.

2D superconductors are interesting, and chiral superconductors especially so.

Strudel or gold?

[Flamecation21]

A fractional improvement is still an improvement, but how is this supposed to lead to the creation of "magnetically levitating vehicles"? How are "sheets" of a material supposed to work as powerlines in a city electrical grid? "Sheets of various material is like a line of pie, or strudel. There has got to be a fragility threshold to test, and stay back from. It sounds like more overpromising. It would be stable in a circuit-board setting, though, so it could be interesting to see what happens to electronic

Re:so depressing this isn't a nerd site anymore

[storkus]

These sheets won't conduct massive amounts of current but that's not the point. These are huge new discoveries with ENTIRELY NEW PHYSICS! How can you not get excited about that?!?

Practically, this could be used to build new computer & sensor tech, for example; superconducting 1-atom graphene sheets would massively drive up performance and (more importantly) down power use & waste heat! All we need is to figure out how to make fabs for mass production.

FWIW, I have a feeling that somewhere this tech I

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

superconductors have 0 resistance. thus, there is NO limit to the current they can carry... remember v=I/r? when r tends to 0, what limits on V or I are there?

The article linked is not a scholarly article, more of a popular science level article. So, i imagine the journalist has an incomplete understanding of superconductors and what the various scientists they spoke with actually said... so, unless there are actual quotes from scientists, then it may be some misrepresentation is going on, unintentionally

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

of course, such a strong magnetic field in a levitating car may he hazardous! Any nearby ferrous object may want to propel itself toward said vehicle, thus possibly damaging it and or the occupants/riders or both!

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

superconductors have 0 resistance. thus, there is NO limit to the current they can carry... remember v=I/r? when r tends to 0, what limits on V or I are there?

V = I/R says nothing about current carrying capacity. It tells you how much current you'll get in response to a particular applied voltage.

Superconductors do, of course, have limits to how much current they can carry. Typically the big one is the critical magnetic field. You know, the magnetic field described by that other basic equation with current

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

i stand by my statement that as resistance goes to 0 current can increase, theoretically without bound.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

Well, we all have uninformed opinions.

You may want to google the terms "superconductor critical current" and "superconductor critical field" though. You might also wish to think about that V in your equation and just how you're going to create it across a superconductor.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Ohms law, like Newtonian Physics in all its forms, breaks down at the Quantum border. You can't pass an infinite amount of current through a wire no matter what the resistance, or more specifically you can pass an infinite amount of current through a wire of any non-infinite resistance, but it requires an infinite amount of time to do so. There is no such thing as a 2 dimensional object. All objects are 4 dimensional; everybody just forgets that time is one of those dimensions.

Don't forget the pressures

[rossdee]

They had some room temperature superconductor a little while back, only thing was it needed pressures greater than the core of Saturn or so.
Hopefully this is a bit more practical.

That's good. However...

[RUs1729]

Very low temperatures still required. The holy grail of room-temperature and pressure superconductors remains elusive.

Call me pedantic, but...

[bbsguru]

"instances of superconductivity in 2D materials "

I understand the intent, but something that is only "one atom" thick, still has the thickness of an atom.
Thickness is, by definition, a dimension.

(ducking and running)

Re:

[algaeman]

I bet when these scientists write a paper, they call the structure planar. It is journalists that substitute inaccurate terms to make it easier for laypeople to understand.

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

they always do, don't they?

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

yep. 100%