Researchers from Brown University have demonstrated an unusual method of putting the brakes on superconductivity, the ability of a material to conduct an electrical current with zero resistance.
The research shows that weak magnetic fields—far weaker than those that normally interrupt superconductivity—can interact with defects in a material to create a “random gauge field,” a kind of quantum obstacle course that generates resistance for superconducting electrons.
“We’re disrupting superconductivity in a way that people haven’t done before,” said Jim Valles, a professor of physics at Brown who directed the work. “This kind of phase transition involving a random gauge field had been predicted theoretically, but this is the first time it has been demonstrated in an experiment.”
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