Superconductivity Presents 2D Preference
	Previously, scientists believed that the superconductive properties of a particular substance were homogeneous in all directions, but the latest study at the Brookhaven Laboratory has proven to be anything but that. In fact, two-dimensional fluctuating superconductivity in a high-temperature superconductor is determined by a special arrangement of electrical charges inside the material, commonly known as "stripes." The study ... [read more >>]
	14 March 2008, 10:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Weird: Superconductors Can Act as Insulators
	Certain metals can be determined to act as superconductors, when cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero, or 0 K. The effect was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, when a Dutch physicist by the name of Kamerlingh Onnes designed an experiment to observe how certain materials behave at low temperatures and he discovered that their electric resistance suddenly drops to zero when a certain temperature is reached, meaning th ... [read more >>]
	23 November 2007, 03:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Smallest Refrigerator in the Nanoworld
	Everybody knows refrigerators are indispensable household appliances that transfer heat from inside it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient. But while commercial refrigerators get bigger to fit more food and drinks, a group of scientists worked on developing the smallest one in the world. It won't be used to chill beer or champagne, but it could do that for tiny x-ray sensors ... [read more >>]
	11 July 2007, 04:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

First Time Pictures of the Complex Geometry on Superconductor Surfaces
	The first pictures of the spatial distribution of a magnetic field penetrating a superconductor were presented by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. They show strange two-dimensional equilibrium patterns and intricate models. Soap-foam like structures display on the surface of superconductors were now related to the macroscopic physical properties, magnetism being the most important, in ... [read more >>]
	09 July 2007, 09:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Turbojet Built with Superconductors?
	Soon, electric aircrafts could be flying in the skies and they could be built using the most advanced electric systems, thanks to superconductors. These projects may still be on the drawing boards for now, but the fact is they could be far more efficient than conventional aircraft, produce less greenhouse emissions and be quieter. Like all human activities involving combustion, operating powered aircraft (from airliners to hot air ball ... [read more >>]
	21 June 2007, 09:03GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Smallest Superconducting Device in the World
	Superconductivity is a phenomenon occurring in certain materials at extremely low temperatures, characterized by exactly zero electrical resistance and the exclusion of the interior magnetic field. They are thought to appear usually below -140 degrees Celsius. Superconductors are used in many applications, like MRI medical imaging scanners, levitating trains and power lines. A group of researchers in the Netherlands created t ... [read more >>]
	20 June 2007, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Happens Below Absolute Zero?
	Many people have heard about the phrase "absolute zero," not many know what it really implies, and fewer have asked themselves the question "what happens below absolute zero?" Are there upper and lower limits to temperature? Absolute zero is known to be 0 K (–273.15 °C, –459.67 °F) and it's used to describe a theoretical system that neither emits nor absorbs energy. It's like a state where no atom and no s ... [read more >>]
	18 June 2007, 12:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A 20-year-old Superconductor Mystery Solved
	Superconductors are a class of materials that display exactly zero electrical resistance and the exclusion of the interior magnetic field (the Meissner effect) at extremely low temperatures, usually below -140 degrees Celsius. They are used in many applications, like MRI medical imaging scanners, levitating trains and power lines. A team of researchers at the University of British Columbia achieved a breakthrough in the field. The most ... [read more >>]
	01 June 2007, 05:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Superconducting Electric Motor
	The design of the electric motor, which converts electrical energy into mechanical energy, hasn't changed much since it was invented, some 50 years ago. New technological developments in the field of superconductors are about to change that. El Hadj Ailam and colleagues working at the Université Henri Poincaré in Nancy, France and the Center for Advanced Power Systems in Tallahassee, Florida, have been working on a new electric mo ... [read more >>]
	25 May 2007, 04:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Will New York City Get Rid of Blackouts?
	New York City will be the first city to experiment a new solution against accidental or intentional blackouts and will become the testbed for a $39.3 million Department of Homeland Security project aiming to replace the existing power grid of the city with new superconductor cables. "This is about Wall Street, this is about making the electric grid for the financial capital of the world ... more defensible against potential proble ... [read more >>]
	22 May 2007, 10:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Form of Matter Discovered, Part Laser, Part Superconductor
	A group of researchers have recently announced the creation of a completely new state of matter that combines the characteristics of lasers with those of the world’s best electrical conductors. They successfully demonstrated the existence of the phase, besides the previously known ones: solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, superfluids, supersolids, Bose-Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, liquid crystals, strange matter and quark ... [read more >>]
	21 May 2007, 12:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Mystery of Superconductivity Solved
	20 years ago, researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory came with the most known high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O7. Now, they have solved another puzzle of the superconductivity: how a slight change in the structure of electron-doped superconductors turns superconductivity on and off. Superconductivity is the lack of any resistance to the flow of electric current at very low temperature, with the potential to save huge ... [read more >>]
	21 March 2007, 07:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia