Chinese scholars again made significant progress in iron-based superconducting research

Following the 2013 National Natural Science Award, Professor Chen Xianhui of the University of Science and Technology of China recently made further progress in the field of iron-based superconducting research and discovered a new iron-based superconducting material, OHFeSe, with superconducting transition temperature. Up to 40K (above 233.15 degrees Celsius), it provides a new material system for studying the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity. Superconductivity is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century. Some materials have a sudden disappearance of electrical resistance when the temperature drops below a critical temperature, or below the superconducting transition temperature. Materials with this characteristic are called superconductors. In recent years, the applications of superconducting materials in the fields of information and communication, biomedicine, and aerospace have become more and more promising.

The research team of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Science and Technology of China, based on more than 20 years of research and accumulation, has made a series of major breakthroughs in iron-based superconducting research and was named “Top Ten Scientific Breakthroughs of 2008” by the US “Science” magazine. In January of this year, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences represented by Zhao Zhongxian, Chen Xianhui, Wang Nanlin, Wen Haihu, and Fang Zhong, and the research team of the University of Science and Technology of China, won the “Research on the discovery of iron-based high-temperature superconductors above 40K and some basic physical properties”. 2013 National Natural Science Award.

Recently, Chen Xianhui of the China National University of Science and Technology Hefei National Laboratory for Microscale Physical Sciences used the hydrothermal reaction method for the first time and succeeded in discovering a new iron-selenium superconducting material: lithium iron-iron-oxygen-iron-selenium compounds. The superconducting transition temperature was as high as 40K. the above. They collaborated with the research team of Dr. Huang Qingzhen, Professor of the Neutron Research Center of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, Prof. Wu Tao of the China University of Science and Technology, and they accurately determined the new materials through the combination of X-ray diffraction, neutron scattering, and nuclear magnetic resonance. Crystal structure.

According to reports, the new superconductor has the advantages of high superconducting transition temperature, air stability, etc. It provides the possibility for further experimental research and provides an ideal material system for exploring the intrinsic physical mechanism of iron-based high temperature superconductivity.

On December 15, the international authoritative academic journal Natural Materials published the results online. Graduate students Lu Xiufang and Wang Nazhou of the Chen Xianhui Research Group were the first authors of the thesis.