Using new technique, scientists uncover a delicate magnetic balance for superconductivity

Using new technique, scientists uncover a delicate magnetic balance for superconductivity:

'via Blog this'

A new imaging technology is giving scientists unprecedented views of the processes that affect the flow of electrons through materials.

By modifying a familiar tool in nanoscience -- the scanning tunneling microscope -- a team at Cornell University's Laboratory for Atomic and Solid State Physics have been able to visualize what happens when they change the electronic structure of a "heavy fermion" compound made of uranium, ruthenium and silicon. What they found sheds light on superconductivity -- the movement of electrons without resistance -which typically occurs at extremely low temperatures and that researchers hope one day to achieve at something close to room temperature, which would revolutionize electronics.