Berkeley Lab team use cutting-edge tech to explore copper efficiency.

For over three decades, scientists have chased the dream of room-temperature superconductivity. Now, harnessing the raw power of cutting-edge supercomputers, researchers are unraveling the mysterious interactions within superconductors – unlocking insights that could lead to practical materials capable of conducting electricity with zero resistance, and effectively changing the world as we know it.

Normally, when electricity flows through a wire, some of the energy is lost as heat because of the resistance in the material. This is why electronics get warm after being used for a while.

Superconductors, however, are unique materials that allow electricity to flow without any resistance, meaning no energy is lost. This makes them extremely efficient and ideal for technologies like power grids, medical imaging, and advanced electronics.

The problem, however, is that most superconductors only work when cooled to extremely low temperatures, making them difficult and expensive to use practically. Now, researchers are using powerful supercomputers to study superconductors made from the most ubiquitous of conductive materials – copper.

A research team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, is using one of the world's most powerful supercomputers to study the behavior of this copper-based superconductor. Summit, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is capable of performing over 200 quadrillion calculations per second, making it an invaluable tool for modeling complex particle interactions.

Utilizing this supercomputer, the researchers are looking at how the arrangement of atoms in these materials affects the movement of particles like electrons.

Zhenglu Li, Berkeley Lab

Crystal structures of a copper-based superconductor.

Specifically, they are trying to understand how negatively charged particles interact with tiny packets of light called photons. These interactions can cause major changes in the material's properties, which could help explain how these materials might work efficiently at higher temperatures.

It is these interactions between electrons and photons that are fundamental to what makes superconductors behave the way they do. By modeling millions of particle states, the team at Berkeley Lab hopes to understand how these interactions lead to superconductivity, especially in copper-based materials.

They are particularly interested in a phenomenon known as "self-energy," which describes how the energy of a particle changes due to the presence of other particles and interactions.

This deeper understanding could pave the way for superconductors that operate efficiently at higher temperatures, possibly even room-temperature. Such a breakthrough would mean no longer needing ultra-cold conditions to achieve zero resistance – fundamentally changing how we build and power our world.

Without the burden of costly cooling systems, superconductors could revolutionize power transmission, enabling grids that operate without energy waste; medical technologies, such as MRI machines, could become more affordable and widely available; and high-performance electronics would become faster, more efficient, and accessible.

The realization of room-temperature superconductors would do more than reshape industries, it could usher in an era of unprecedented energy efficiency and innovation, unlocking cheap and abundant energy nearly everywhere for everyone.