Superconductors raise many hopes, especially materials which lose their electrical resistance at quite high temperatures—be it for high-performance medical imaging technologies, the energy transportation or for maglev trains. High-temperature superconductors which deserve the name could find many applications. However, their fascination bears no relationship to the ongoing mystery of their actual nature; this has so far hindered the search for zero-resistance conductors for realistic temperatures.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart and Augsburg are making their contribution to a more detailed understanding of how iron-based superconductors work and the role played by magnetism. They are the first to have imaged the magnetic structure of a so-called strongly correlated electron system, here of iron telluride, on an atomic scale. Prior to this, information about the magnetic structure was provided only by neutron diffraction, but the image it produced was imprecise. Iron telluride is the non-superconducting parent compound of the iron chalcogenide superconductors. The researchers now hope to be able to apply the method to materials which exhibit both superconducting and magnetic properties in order to find out more about the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity.
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