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Clarifying the role of magnetism in high-temperature superconductors

January 25, 2016

It is known that the phenomenon of superconductivity — where materials conduct electricity without resistance — arises when pairs of electrons become coupled together or “paired.” With traditional superconductors, this pairing arises due to vibrations of the ions in the structure.

But this is not always the case: there are other types of materials, such as cuprate superconductors and a relatively new class of superconductor iron-pnictide superconductors, that was discovered by a group led by Hideo Hosono at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where magnetism may be the paring mechanism.

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