Novel magnetic, superconducting material

  

Researchers who sandwiched two nonmagnetic insulators together announced a startling result today: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions - two properties that normally can’t co-exist. Using the device at right, called a nanoSQUID, scientists at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES), a joint institute of the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University created images of both the magnetic and superconducting properties. The nanoSQUID is a billion times more sensitive than commercial magnetometers and can detect magnetic fields a million times smaller than that of the Earth. Photo by Steve Gladfelter

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have reached a crucial milestone that could lead to a new class of materials with useful electronic properties. In research reported in the Sept. 5 issue of Nature Physics, the team sandwiched two nonmagnetic insulators together and discovered a startling result: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions – two properties that normally can’t co-exist.

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Researchers who sandwiched two nonmagnetic insulators together announced a startling result today: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions - two properties that normally can’t co-exist. Using the device at right, called a nanoSQUID, scientists at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES), a joint institute of the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University created images of both the magnetic and superconducting properties. The nanoSQUID is a billion times more sensitive than commercial magnetometers and can detect magnetic fields a million times smaller than that of the Earth. Photo by Steve Gladfelter

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have reached a crucial milestone that could lead to a new class of materials with useful electronic properties. In research reported in the Sept. 5 issue of Nature Physics, the team sandwiched two nonmagnetic insulators together and discovered a startling result: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions – two properties that normally can’t co-exist.