Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Superconductivity at 39 K in magnesium diboride

Abstract

In the light of the tremendous progress that has been made in raising the transition temperature of the copper oxide superconductors (for a review, see ref. 1), it is natural to wonder how high the transition temperature, Tc, can be pushed in other classes of materials. At present, the highest reported values of Tc for non-copper-oxide bulk superconductivity are 33 K in electron-doped CsxRbyC60 (ref. 2), and 30 K in Ba1-xKxBiO3 (ref. 3). (Hole-doped C60 was recently found4 to be superconducting with a Tc as high as 52 K, although the nature of the experiment meant that the supercurrents were confined to the surface of the C60 crystal, rather than probing the bulk.) Here we report the discovery of bulk superconductivity in magnesium diboride, MgB2. Magnetization and resistivity measurements establish a transition temperature of 39 K, which we believe to be the highest yet determined for a non-copper-oxide bulk superconductor.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

• Giant enhancement of superconducting critical temperature in substitutional alloy (La,Ce)H9

Nature Communications Open Access 10 October 2022

• In-silico synthesis of lowest-pressure high-Tc ternary superhydrides

npj Computational Materials Open Access 25 May 2022

• High-temperature phonon-mediated superconductivity in monolayer Mg2B4C2

npj Quantum Materials Open Access 01 April 2022

Access options

\$32.00

All prices are NET prices.

References

1. Takagi, H. in Proc. Int. Conf. on Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity, High Temperature Superconductors VI. Physica C 341-348, 3–7 (2000).

2. Tanigaki, K. et al. Superconductivity at 33 K in CsxRbyC60. Nature 352, 222–223 (1991).

3. Cava, R. V. et al. Superconductivity near 30 K without copper: the Ba0.6K0.4BiO3 perovskite. Nature 332, 814–816 (1988).

4. Schön, J. H., Kloc, Ch. & Batlogg, B. Superconductivity at 52 K in hole-doped C60. Nature 408, 549–552 (2000).

5. Jones, M. & Marsh, R. The preparation and structure of magnesium boride, MgB2. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 76, 1434–1436 (1954).

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Science Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan and by a grant from CREST.

Author information

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Akimitsu.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Nagamatsu, J., Nakagawa, N., Muranaka, T. et al. Superconductivity at 39 K in magnesium diboride. Nature 410, 63–64 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35065039

• Accepted:

• Issue Date:

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35065039

• Giant enhancement of superconducting critical temperature in substitutional alloy (La,Ce)H9

• Jingkai Bi
• Yuki Nakamoto
• Yanming Ma

Nature Communications (2022)

• In-silico synthesis of lowest-pressure high-Tc ternary superhydrides

• Roman Lucrezi
• Simone Di Cataldo
• Christoph Heil

npj Computational Materials (2022)

• High-temperature phonon-mediated superconductivity in monolayer Mg2B4C2

• Sobhit Singh
• Aldo H. Romero
• Francisco Muñoz

npj Quantum Materials (2022)

• Vortex Matter in a Two-Band SQUID-Shaped Superconducting film

• C. A. Aguirre
• Julián Faúndez
• J. Barba-Ortega

Journal of Low Temperature Physics (2022)

• Spherical Superconducting $$\mathrm MgB_2$$ Thin Film

• Xiaojia Li
• Hongzhang Wang
• Yue Wang

Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism (2022)