Every time electricity flows through a cable, some of the energy is lost, usually as heat. Researchers have therefore spent decades searching for materials that can conduct electricity without these losses. This is what so-called superconductors could one day make possible. A research team involving the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now developed a new method to study particularly promising candidates in greater detail under extreme conditions.
Superconductors are materials in which electrical resistance disappears completely below a certain temperature. Electric current can then flow without losses. The problem is that most known superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures, far below minus 130 degrees Celsius. This makes technical applications expensive and difficult, especially for large-scale systems such as power grids.
Magnetic miniature lenses for tiny samples
This is where the new method comes in. The researchers used so-called Lenz lenses — tiny metallic structures that act like magnetic magnifying glasses. They focus measurement signals precisely onto the microscopic sample trapped between the diamonds. “We had to focus the high-frequency fields exactly where the sample is located between the diamonds — within an area only a few tens of micrometres across, smaller than the diameter of a human hair,” explains Florian Bärtl from the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the HZDR.
Using this approach, the team was able to study these materials in greater detail under extreme pressure for the first time. The measurements provided new insights into how atoms behave inside the material and why superconductivity may emerge there. The researchers also exposed the samples to extremely strong magnetic fields to test how stable their superconducting properties remained under such conditions. Combining both methods gives scientists a more complete picture of how these materials behave.
The work is less a breakthrough toward everyday superconductors than an important methodological advance. It improves scientists’ ability to investigate hydrogen-rich high-pressure materials — an area widely regarded as technically extremely challenging. In the long term, the researchers hope to better understand why hydrogen-rich materials become superconducting. That knowledge could eventually help develop new materials for more efficient energy technologies, although practical applications remain a distant goal..
Publications:
D. V. Semenok, F. Bärtl, D. Zhou, T. Helm, S. Luther, J. Wosnitza, I. A. Troyan, V. V. Struzhkin, H. Kühne, Transmission of Radio-Frequency Waves and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Lanthanum Superhydrides, in Advanced Science, 2026
D. V. Semenok, I. A. Troyan, D. Zhou, A. V. Sadakov, K. S. Pervakov, O. A. Sobolevskiy, A. G. Ivanova, M. Galasso, F. G. Alabarse, W. Chen, C. Xi, T. Helm, S. Luther, V. M. Pudalov, V. V. Struzhkin, Ternary Superhydrides Under Pressure of Anderson's Theorem: Near-Record Superconductivity in (La, Sc)H12, in Advanced Functional Materials, 2025
