Unconventional superconductor is even odder than expected

Condensed-matter physicists knew that CeRh₂As₂ was an unconventional superconductor, but they didn’t appreciate just how unconventional it was until an international team of researchers took a closer look at how it behaves in high magnetic fields. According to the latest findings from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (MPI CPfS) in Dresden, Germany and colleagues, CeRh₂As₂ is one of only a few materials to boast an odd-parity superconducting state – that is, one that is stable to magnetic fields applied in certain directions.