Scientists have discovered a remarkable ‘demon particle’ that holds the potential to usher in a new era of superconductors, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study, published in the journal Nature, detailed the discovery of the particle and was first predicted nearly 70 years ago by physicist David Pines. A superconductor, a special type of metal or alloy, possesses the remarkable ability to transmit electrical currents without any hindrance. However, current superconductors require the temperature to fall below 100 degrees Fahrenheit-mark to maintain their properties.
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Recent advancements by researchers at the University of Illinois have led to the identification of a transparent, massless, and neutral particle, indicating its capacity to manifest regardless of temperature, within the metal strontium ruthenate.
While superconductors already find use in applications such as maglev trains and precision-enhancing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus, the emergence of materials that can perform this feat at room temperature could revolutionise the landscape, opening doors to the creation of more potent computing systems.
Pines’ demon is a plasmon – that behaves like a particle – meaning it’s a quasiparticle.
“The vast majority of experiments are done with light and measure optical properties, but being electrically neutral means that demons don’t interact with light,” said Peter Abbamonte, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and lead author of the study in a press release.
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“A completely different kind of experiment was needed,” he added.
The team said that it chose strontium ruthenate (Sr2RuO4) because it is similar to high-temperature superconductors and yet isn’t one.
“At first, we had no idea what it was. Demons are not in the mainstream. The possibility came up early on, and we basically laughed it off. But, as we started ruling things out, we started to suspect that we had really found the demon,” said former graduate student Ali Husain, a co-author of the study.
The researchers added that further research is needed using alternative methods of observation in order to fully understand how the quasiparticle functions.
