December 12, 2010 The picture that physicists have of
unconventional superconductors is gradually becoming clearer.
These materials also include the complexly-structured ceramic
materials which conduct current without losses, even at
relatively high temperatures. These temperatures are still below
minus 135 degrees Celsius, however - too cold for wide-scale
everyday application. In order to systematically shift this
limit to a higher value, physicists first have to understand how
the superconductivity arises in these materials. "Our findings
make an important contribution to this understanding," says
Frank Steglich, Director at the Max Planck Institute for
Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden and head of the
investigation. One of the things that the researchers have
discovered is that the magnetic interactions in the material
provide enough energy to put the material into the
superconducting state. The researchers working with Frank
Steglich collaborated with colleagues from the Jülich Center for
Neutron Sci