{"id":16897,"date":"2025-07-23T02:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16897\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T02:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:16:11","slug":"physics-characterizing-a-top-superconductor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16897\/","title":{"rendered":"Physics – Characterizing a Top Superconductor"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 22, 2025&bullet; Physics 18, s90<\/p>\n

The material with the highest-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure has received less attention than its easier-to-prepare relatives\u2014until now.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a>\"expand<\/p>\n

The highest-temperature superconductor at ambient pressure is the cuprate Hg1223, which superconducts at 134 K. This material is not as well characterized as the cuprate Bi2223, which cleaves more readily into uniform, easily measurable samples. Last year researchers demonstrated a way to grow high-quality crystals whose composition and structure come close to matching those of Hg1223 [1<\/a>]. Now Masafumi Horio at the University of Tokyo and his colleagues have analyzed those crystals and found that studies of Bi2223 have missed a detail that contributes to Hg1223\u2019s record superconducting properties [2<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Hg1223 and Bi2223 are both trilayer cuprates, meaning their unit cells include three layers of copper oxide (CuO2) interspersed with, among other elements, mercury (in Hg1223) and bismuth (in Bi2223). The newly synthesized material, (Hg,Re)1223, has the same structure as Hg1223, but some mercury atoms are replaced by rhenium, which helps to stabilize the compound.<\/p>\n

A popular technique for investigating superconductors is angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). This technique can quantify a material\u2019s superconducting gap, which is the binding energy of the electron pairs that carry the supercurrent: In general, the wider the gap, the higher the superconducting temperature. In Bi2223 the inner CuO2 layer has a much wider superconducting gap than the outer layers, suggesting that the inner layer\u2019s properties are key to the material\u2019s high critical temperature of 110 K.<\/p>\n

Applying ARPES to (Hg,Re)1223, Horio and colleagues found a crucial difference. The superconducting gap of (Hg,Re)1223\u2019s inner CuO2 layer was similar to that of Bi2223. But the outer layers of (Hg,Re)1223 exhibited a significantly larger gap than those of Bi2223. \u201cIt is now clear from our study that superconductivity in the outer plane is not a mere supporter of the inner plane but is itself a significant factor governing superconducting temperature,\u201d Horio says.<\/p>\n

\u2013Marric Stephens<\/p>\n

Marric Stephens is a Corresponding Editor for\u00a0Physics Magazine<\/a> based in Bristol, UK.<\/p>\n

ReferencesY. Mino et al., \u201cSingle-crystal growth and characterization of cuprate superconductor (Hg,Re)Ba2Ca2Cu3O8+\ud835\udeff,\u201d J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 93, 044707 (2024)<\/a>.M. Horio et al., \u201cEnhanced superconducting gap in the outer CuO2 plane of the trilayer cuprate (Hg,Re)Ba2Ca2Cu3O8+\ud835\udeff,\u201d Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 046501 (2025)<\/a>.Enhanced Superconducting Gap in the Outer CuO2 Plane of the Trilayer Cuprate (Hg,\u2009Re)Ba2Ca2Cu3O8+\u03b4<\/a><\/p>\n

M. Horio, M. Miyamoto, Y. Mino, S. Ishida, B. Thiagarajan, C.\u2009M. Polley, C.\u2009H. Lee, T. Nishio, H. Eisaki, and I. Matsuda<\/p>\n

Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 046501 (2025)<\/a><\/p>\n

Published July 22, 2025<\/p>\n

Subject AreasSuperconductivity<\/a>Condensed Matter Physics<\/a>Related Articles\"Half-Metals<\/a>\"Optimizing<\/a>\"Quantum<\/a> More Articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 22, 2025&bullet; Physics 18, s90 The material with the highest-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure has received less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-16897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}