A team at the University of Houston says it has set a new superconductivity record, producing a material that can carry electricity with zero resistance at normal pressure and at a higher temperature than any previous ambient-pressure superconductor.

That does not mean room-temperature superconductors are here yet. But it does mark a significant step toward technologies that could dramatically reduce wasted energy.

What happened?

Researchers at the Texas Center for Superconductivity and the university's physics department measured a superconducting transition temperature of 151 Kelvin (-122 degrees Celsius). The university said that it is the closest anyone has gotten to room temperature yet, and it is the highest temperature reported for an ambient-pressure superconductor since superconductivity was first identified in 1911, according to a ScienceDaily article.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, breaks a record that had stood for more than 30 years. The earlier ambient-pressure highest temperature was 133 K, reached in 1993 by the mercury-based copper oxide material Hg1223.

Physicists Ching-Wu Chu and Liangzi Deng achieved the new result using a technique called pressure quenching. They first exposed the material to high pressure to enhance its superconducting properties, then cooled it and rapidly released the pressure so the improved state remained stable under normal conditions.

"Our method shows that it is possible to retain that state without maintaining pressure," Chu said.

Why does it matter?

Superconductors allow electricity to move with no resistance, which means almost no energy is lost as heat. That could make power grids more efficient, improve energy storage, and support faster electronics, better MRI systems, and future fusion-energy technology.

Chu noted that about 8% of electricity is currently lost during transmission on the grid. Reducing those losses could lead to major savings while also cutting pollution tied to unnecessary power generation.

Most superconductors function only at extremely low temperatures, so expensive cooling systems are still required. Raising the operating temperature makes these materials far more practical for real-world applications and much easier for scientists to study with standard equipment.

The result could help bring cleaner, more efficient energy systems and medical technologies closer to everyday use.

The University of Houston team is now helping push the field toward an even more ambitious goal: room-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure. Room temperature is roughly 300 K, so this record remains about 140 degrees Celsius short of that target.

Chu and Deng also contributed to a paper outlining six possible paths for pushing superconducting temperatures higher, including pressure quenching, the method used for this breakthrough. 

Rohit Prasankumar, director of superconductivity research at Intellectual Ventures, said future advances will likely depend on collaboration among physicists, chemists, engineers, and materials scientists.

"This finding has great potential," Chu said. "We believe, with enough people working on it and given enough time, we should be able to realize the potential."

Deng added that ambient-pressure materials become "much more accessible for scientists to use well-developed instrumentation."

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