Researchers at the 91视频鈥檚 Texas Center for Superconductivity have achieved another first in their quest toward ambient-pressure high-temperature superconductivity, bringing us one step closer to finding superconductors that work in everyday conditions 鈥� and potentially unlocking a new era of energy-efficient technologies.
In their study titled 鈥淐reation, stabilization, and investigation at ambient pressure of pressure-induced superconductivity in Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3,鈥� published in the , professors Liangzi Deng and Paul Ching-Wu Chu of the UH Department of Physics set out to see if they could push BST into a superconducting state under pressure 鈥� without altering its chemistry or structure.
鈥淚n 2001, scientists suspected that applying high pressure to BST changed its Fermi surface topology, leading to improved thermoelectric performance,鈥� Deng said. 鈥淭hat connection between pressure, topology and superconductivity piqued our interest.鈥�
鈥淎s materials scientist Pol Duwez once pointed out, most solids that are crucial to industry exist in a metastable state,鈥� Chu said. 鈥淭he problem with that is many of the most exciting superconductors only work under pressure, making them difficult to study and even harder to use in practical applications.鈥�
That鈥檚 where Deng and Chu鈥檚 breakthrough comes in.
Using a technique they developed called the pressure-quench protocol (PQP), described in an October UH news release, Deng and Chu successfully stabilized BST鈥檚 high-pressure-induced superconducting states at ambient pressure 鈥� meaning no special high-pressure environments needed.
Why does this matter? It opens up a whole new way to retain valuable material phases that usually only exist under pressure for fundamental research and practical application.
鈥淭his experiment clearly demonstrates that one may stabilize the high-pressure-induced phase at ambient pressure via a subtle electronic transition without a symmetry change, offering a novel avenue to retain the material phases of interest and values that ordinarily exist only under pressure,鈥� Chu said. 鈥淚t should help our search for superconductors with higher transition temperatures.鈥�
鈥淚nterestingly, this experiment revealed a novel approach to discovering new states of matter that do not exist at ambient pressure originally or even under high-pressure conditions,鈥� Deng added. 鈥淚t demonstrates that PQP is a powerful tool for exploring and creating uncharted regions of material phase diagrams.鈥�
