A JOINT research team from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen and other Chinese institutions has developed a new type of high-temperature superconductor at ambient pressure, achieving a breakthrough in superconductivity research.

The team, led by SUSTech president Xue Qikun, published its findings in the international academic journal Nature on Tuesday.

Consisting of researchers from SUSTech, the Quantum Science Center of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Tsinghua University, the team reported nickelate superconductivity under ambient pressure, with an onset transition temperature that exceeds 40 Kelvin (about minus 233 degrees Celsius), alongside the existence of definitive evidence of zero electrical resistance and the expulsion of magnetic fields.

Superconductors are materials that exhibit zero electrical resistance and complete diamagnetism under specific temperature conditions. They have broad applications in areas such as power transmission and storage, medical imaging, magnetic levitation trains, and quantum computing.

Notably, realizing high-temperature superconductivity under ambient conditions has become a major goal for researchers worldwide.

Superconductivity can be likened to a “zero-energy sports car” on the highway of electricity, with no energy loss as electric current passes through it. It is widely regarded as a revolutionary technology.

Since its discovery in 1911, the search for superconducting materials that can break through the 40 Kelvin McMillan limit — a theoretical temperature limit for superconductivity — at normal pressure has become a key research direction in the international scientific community.

A member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a distinguished condensed matter physics researcher, Xue has achieved multiple scientific breakthroughs. His team made the first experimental observation of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in 2022. He was a winner of the country’s top sci-tech award in 2023.

(SD-Xinhua)