Etch-a-sketch with superconductors
23 Aug 2011
Reporting in Nature Materials this week, researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Physics Department of Sapienza University of Rome have discovered a technique to 'draw' superconducting shapes using an X-ray beam.
This ability to create and control tiny superconducting structures has implications for a completely new generation of electronic devices.
Superconductivity is a special state where a material conducts electricity with no resistance, meaning absolutely zero energy is wasted.
The research group has shown that they can manipulate regions of high temperature superconductivity, in a particular material which combines oxygen, copper and a heavier, 'rare earth' element called lanthanum.
Illuminating with X-rays causes a small scale re-arrangement of the oxygen atoms in the material, resulting in high temperature superconductivity, of the type originally discovered for such materials 25 years ago by IBM scientists. The X-ray beam is then used like a pen to draw shapes in two dimensions.
A well as being able to write superconductors with dimensions much smaller than the width of a human hair, the group is able to erase those structures by applying heat treatments.