Ultrafast, Power-Saving Electronics Come Closer To Reality

In the current trend of gadget-savvy generation, science and technology is trying its best to catch up with the demands.

Ultrafast, power-saving electronic devices may have come a step closer to reality with American researchers producing superconducting thin films.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory say that they have successfully created two-layer thin films where neither layer is superconducting on its own, but which exhibit a nanometre-thick region of superconductivity at their interface.

According to them, the films exhibit ability to elevate the temperature of superconductivity at this interface to temperatures exceeding 50 kelvin (-370°F), a relatively high temperature deemed more practical for real-world devices.

"This work provides definitive proof of our ability to produce robust superconductivity at the interface of two layers confined within an extremely thin, 1-2-nanometer-thick layer near the physical boundary between the two materials," said physicist Ivan Bozovic, who leads the Brookhaven thin film research team.

"It opens vistas for further progress, including using these techniques to significantly enhance superconducting properties in other known or new superconductors," the researcher added. He foresees future research investigating different combinations of non-superconducting materials.

"Further study of the temperature-enhancement mechanism might even tell us something about the big puzzle the mechanism underlying high-temperature superconductivity, which remains one of the most important open problems in condensed matter physics," he said

This will help to solve the problem faced controlling the overheating of the semi-conductor devices, thus, adding an edge to the technology.