Silver sheds light on superconductor secrets

By doping a bismuth-based layered material with silver, Chinese scientists demonstrated that superconductivity is intrinsic to the new material rather than stemming from its impurities.

The first report on the chemical substitution, or doping, using silver atoms, for a new class of superconductor that was only discovered this year, is about to be published in EPJ B. Chinese scientists from Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, discovered that the superconductivity is intrinsic rather than created by impurities in this material with a sandwich-style layered structure made of bismuth oxysulphide (Bi4O4S3).