Scientists create laser-activated superconductor

Shining lasers at superconductors can make them work at higher temperatures, suggests new findings from an international team of scientists including the University of Bath. Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity without power loss and produce strong magnetic fields. They are used in medical scanners, super-fast electronic circuits and in Maglev trains which use superconducting magnets to make the train hover above the tracks, eliminating friction. Currently superconductors only work at very low temperatures, requiring liquid nitrogen or helium to maintain their temperature. Now scientists publishing in the prestigious journal Nature have found a way to make certain materials superconduct at higher temperatures. Laser-activated superconductor. The team, led by the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and including the Universities of Bath and Oxford, shone a laser at a material made up from potassium atoms and carbon atoms arranged in bucky ball structures and found it to still be superconducting at more than 100 degrees Kelvin - around minus 170 degrees Celsius.