Room-temperature superconductivity
The goal is a material that conducts electricity without resistance at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure. Achieving both conditions together remains a research target.
Condensed matter
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Strange metals
In some materials, electrical transport behaves in ways that the usual picture of independently moving electron-like excitations cannot explain. What replaces that picture?
Glass transition
A cooling liquid can become enormously slower without developing a crystal’s obvious order. What microscopic change explains its transition into a glass?
Cuprate pairing mechanism
What microscopic interaction produces superconducting electron pairs across the cuprate phase diagram?
Hole-doped cuprate pseudogap
Why do hole-doped cuprates lose low-energy electronic states before superconductivity appears?
Charge order in kagome superconductors
Why does charge order break symmetry differently across the AV3Sb5 kagome superconductor family?
Non-Abelian anyons in the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state
Do the excitations of the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state exhibit non-Abelian exchange statistics?
Many-body localization in two dimensions
Can an isolated two-dimensional disordered interacting system avoid thermalization indefinitely?
Kitaev spin liquid in α-RuCl3
Is the field-induced state of α-RuCl3 a Kitaev spin liquid with fractional excitations?
Granular layering at large particle-size ratios
Why do flowing mixtures with very different grain sizes form repeated layers?
Grain-structure control in metal 3D printing
Can laser printing reliably produce a chosen grain structure without cracking the alloy?
Sr₂RuO₄ pairing symmetry
Sr₂RuO₄ is a superconductor, but experiments still do not select one consistent symmetry for its paired-electron state.
Herbertsmithite ground state
Herbertsmithite is a leading candidate for a quantum spin liquid. Which low-temperature state is intrinsic to its kagome layers?
Polymer contact electrification
Plastic surfaces can acquire charge when they touch and separate. Which carriers dominate depends on material chemistry and contact conditions.
Phonon thermal Hall effect
Heat carried by atomic vibrations can flow sideways in a magnetic field, even in a nonmagnetic electrical insulator. What microscopic process produces this response in strontium titanate?
Two-level systems in glasses
Very cold glasses absorb heat and sound through low-energy motions beyond ordinary vibrations. Tunneling between two arrangements describes many measurements, but which microscopic structures supply these states?
Bilayer nickelate pairing mechanism
Nickel-oxide bilayers superconduct under high pressure and in suitably prepared ambient-pressure films. What interaction binds the electron pairs, and can one quantitative account explain the measured gaps and material dependence?