Exploring superconducting electrons in twisted graphene
Science & Tech Exploring superconducting electrons in twisted graphene Could up the game of lossless power transmission, levitating trains, quantum computing, even energy-efficient detectors for space exploration Clea Simon Harvard Correspondent March 3, 2025 4 min read Abhishek Banerjee (from left), Philip Kim, and Zeyu Hao. Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer Superconductors, materials that can transmit electricity without resistance, have fascinated physicists for over a century. First discovered in 1911 by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who observed the phenomenon in solid mercury cooled with liquid helium to around minus 450 F (just a few degrees above absolute zero), superconductors have been sought to revolutionize lossless power transmission, levitating trains, and even quantum computing. Now, using specially developed microwave technology, a team of researchers from Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Raytheon-BBN Technologies has revealed unusual superconducting behavior in twisted stacks of graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon. Their research was published in Nature. Graphene was discovered in 2004 by...