Smarter sensors developed at UBC deliver core insights - UBC Applied Science

After nearly 40 years since the discovery of cuprates, copper-based compounds promising lossless electricity transmission, the mechanisms behind their superconductivity remain elusive. Researchers at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), led by Professor Fabio Boschini, have now published findings in Nature Physics revealing a competition between superconductivity and the pseudogap, a mysterious quantum state. “The pseudogap is one of the greatest mysteries in condensed-matter physics,” says Professor Boschini, a specialist in ultrafast spectroscopy of quantum condensed matter at INRS, adding that understanding its interaction with superconductivity is essential to explaining high-temperature superconductivity. The INRS team used a pulse of light to temporarily suppress superconductivity, observing how the material responded in real time and uncovering previously hidden electronic states.

An international team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, led by a postdoctoral research fellow from the University of Newcastle, Australia, has discovered that solar jets called spicules, which are 6–8 Mm long, take the form of warped, denser plasma sheets like pleated drapery. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.