An Artificial “Switchboard” Lets Scientists Dial Between Superconductor, Insulator – and a Strange Quantum State In-Between

Imagine flipping a dial to make a material behave like a perfect conductor, a complete blocker, or something intriguingly in-between that could help us to better understand the puzzling quantum world. That’s the idea behind a new study in Physical Review Letters, co-authored by FZU researcher Filip Křížek within an international collaboration.

Superconductors – materials that carry electrical current with zero resistance below a certain temperature – are becoming central to next-generation electronics, sensing, and quantum computing. Yet, as research has matured, scientists have discovered a richer landscape of quantum phases hiding around the superconducting state. Probing these phases in real, complex materials can be difficult, and purely “on/off” superconductivity isn’t always the most convenient knob for experiments.

The whole article can be found here.