Observation of Half-Quantum Magnetic Flux in Sr2RuO4
Professor Maeno of Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan) and Assistant Professor Budakian of University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, IllinoisCUSA) were the leaders of both teams, and details of the research were published in the scientific Journal Science on the same day*.
Strontium ruthenium oxide (SRO) is an unconventional superconductor that has been proposed as the solid-state analog of the A-phase of superfluid helium 3 in which half-quantum vortex was predicted theoretically more than 30 years ago. In this research, magnetic measurements at 0.4 K were made, at University of Illinois, on a specimen fabricated by drilling a hole of 500 nm diameter on the 2 ƒÊm square Sr2RuO4 crystal grown at Kyoto University and placed on a micro-fabricated Si cantilever device developed at University of Illinois. The observed half-quantum magnetic flux, according to the news-releases from both universities, verifies that SRO is a spin-triplet superconductor and that application to topological quantum computing and spintronics is expected.
Journal information
J. Jang, D. G. Ferguson, V. Vakaryuk, R. Budakian, S. B. Chung, P. M. Goldbart and M. Maeno, “Observation of Hahf-Height Magnetization Steps in Sr2RuO4”, Science Vol. 331 No. 6014 pp.186-188, Published 14 January 2011, DOI: 10.1126/science.1193839
Media Contact
All latest news from the category: Materials Sciences
Materials management deals with the research, development, manufacturing and processing of raw and industrial materials. Key aspects here are biological and medical issues, which play an increasingly important role in this field.
innovations-report offers in-depth articles related to the development and application of materials and the structure and properties of new materials.
Newest articles
Time to Leave Home? Revealed Insights into Brood Care of Cichlids
Shell-dwelling cichlids take intense care of their offspring, which they raise in abandoned snail shells. A team at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence used 3D-printed snail shells to…
Smart Fabrics: Innovative Comfortable Wearable Tech
Researchers have demonstrated new wearable technologies that both generate electricity from human movement and improve the comfort of the technology for the people wearing them. The work stems from an…
Going Steady—Study Reveals North Atlantic’s Gulf Stream Remains Robust
A study by the University of Bern and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA concludes that the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which includes the Gulf Stream,…