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Currents without borders

Nature volume 407, pages 139–140 (2000)Cite this article

Following the discovery of superconductivity at liquid-nitrogen temperatures, the idea of making ‘superwires’ soon ran into problems. Structural impurities remain the main obstacle, but a high dose of calcium may be the answer.

In the 1960s, a solid-state physics researcher who studied a non-cubic compound that was made up of more than two chemical elements would be committing professional hara-kiri. Not even oxides were considered fashionable. Such materials were the province of the ‘dirtier’ derivatives of the field — metallurgy, geology, polymer chemistry and, at best, crystallography. But by the 1970s we purists had run out of simple structures. Much to our surprise, we found an even greater richness of physics in conducting organic materials, amorphous metals and semiconductors, and multi-element transition-metal oxides.

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Figure 1: How to mend a faulty superwire.

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  1. Electric Power Research Institute , 3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, 94303, California, USA

    Paul M. Grant

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  1. Paul M. Grant
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Correspondence to Paul M. Grant.

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Grant, P. Currents without borders. Nature 407, 139–140 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35025162

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