Charge instability detected across all types of copper-based superconductors

A recent study by physicists from the University of British Columbia and the University of Maryland detected for the first time in electron-doped cuprate superconductors evidence of charge ordering, a phenomenon that appears to compete with superconductivity and reduce the temperature at which cuprates demonstrate superconducting properties. The study's findings suggest that charge order may be a universal feature of high temperature superconductors.

LHC filled with liquid helium for spring restart

In December 2014 the cryogenics team at CERN finished filling the eight curved sections of the LHC with liquid helium. The LHC ring is now cooled to below 4K (-452˚F). This cool-down is an important milestone in preparing the LHC for its spring 2015 restart, after which physicists plan to use it to produce the highest-energy particle collisions ever achieved on Earth.

TRIUMF announces photo contest winners

The results are in from a photo contest organized last fall by TRIUMF (CSA CSM), Canada’s national particle and nuclear physics laboratory, when the lab invited Vancouver-based photographers to tour the facility and submit their images to be judged by the public, TRIUMF scientists and a jury of local experts.

MIT researchers find new mathematical relationship in superconductors

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have discovered a new mathematical relationship between material thickness, temperature and electrical resistance that appears to hold in all superconductors. The result could shed light on the nature of superconductivity and could also lead to better-engineered superconducting circuits for applications like quantum computing and ultralow-power computing.

Vector electromagnet at BESSY II creates 3D magnetic fields in samples

Together with Helmholz Centrum Berlin (HZB), teams from the Universität Regensburg, the Freie Universität Berlin and the Ruhr Universität Bochum have jointly set up a unique measurement station at BESSY II: a vector electromagnet consisting of three mutually perpendicular Helmholtz coils that enables setting the local magnetic field at the sample position to any orientation desired. The first measurements of magnetic materials, spin systems, and nanostructured magnetic samples are scheduled for early 2015.

First LHC magnets prepped for restart

One-eighth of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) dipole magnets have reached the energy they'll need to operate in 2015. Engineers at CERN powered 154 superconducting magnets to a current of around 11,000 amps. This is about 1,000 times greater than an average household appliance and is required to make the 50-foot-long electromagnets powerful enough to bend particles moving close to the speed of light around the curves of the LHC.