A tiny sample of an organic salt has shown superconductivity, the ability to pass electrical current with no resistance.
Crystals of the salt (BETS)2GaCl4, where BETS is bis(ethylenedithio)tetraselenafulvalene, had already demonstrated superconductivity in bulk. Saw-Wai Hla of Ohio University in Athens, Abdou Hassanien of the Nanotechnology Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan, and their colleagues created an ultra-thin layer of the salt by depositing molecular chains of it on a silver substrate. They found that the chains, cooled to below 10 kelvin, exhibit superconductivity, even when just four molecules long — about 3.5 nanometres.
The observation opens up a new avenue for studying the local mechanism of superconductivity. Such materials could one day lead to smaller superconducting circuits.
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Nanotechnology: Small salt superconducts. Nature 464, 653 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/464653c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/464653c
