Superconductivity appears to rely on very different mechanisms in two varieties of iron-based superconductors. The insight comes from research groups that are making bold statements about the correct description of superconductivity in iron-based compounds in two papers about to be published in journals of the American Physical Society.

James S. Schilling, Ph.D., professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Mathew Debessai — his doctoral student at the time — discovered that europium becomes superconducting at 1.8 K (-456 °F) and 80 GPa (790,000 atmospheres) of pressure, making it the 53rd known elemental superconductor and the 23rd at high pressure.

For nearly a century, scientists have been trying to unravel the many mysteries of superconductivity, where materials conduct electricity with zero resistance.

Scientists at U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory used inelastic neutron scattering to show that superconductivity in a new family of iron arsenide superconductors cannot be explained by conventional theories.

Like astronomers tweaking images to gain a more detailed glimpse of distant stars, physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have found ways to sharpen images of the energy spectra in high-temperature superconductors — materials that carry electrical current effortlessly when cooled below a certain temperature.

When an electrical current passes through a wire it emanates heat – a principle that's found in toasters and incandescent light bulbs. Some materials, at low temperatures, violate this law and carry current without any heat loss. But this seemingly trivial property, superconductivity, is now at the forefront of our understanding of physics.

Physicists at Rutgers and Columbia universities have gained new insight into the origins of superconductivity – a property of metals where electrical resistance vanishes – by studying exotic chemical compounds that contain neptunium and plutonium.

How does a magnet that cannot transport electricity transform into a superconductor that is a perfect conductor of electricity?

Superconductivity has perplexed, astounded and inspired scientists ever since it was discovered in 1911. Now, in the latest of a century of surprises, researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University have discovered unusual properties in a novel superconducting material that point to an entirely new kind of superconductor.

Scientists at Brookhaven Lab have discovered a state of two-dimensional (2D) fluctuating superconductivity in a high-temperature superconductor with a particular arrangement of electrical charges known as "stripes."

An international research team has discovered that a magnetic field can interact with the electrons in a superconductor in ways never before observed.

A research group at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory led by physics professor Pengcheng Dai, along with collaborators at Boston College, has taken a step toward understanding a great physical mystery.