Fengrui Shi

At a temperature of 4.3 degrees above absolute zero, a crystal of palladium telluride stops resisting electric current. Electrons pair up and move without loss, like a crowd holding hands. But this superconductor seems to have not one but two different ways of pairing.

Imagine trying to overhear a whisper between two people in a noisy hall. That's roughly the challenge physicists face when they want to understand how electrons pair up inside a superconductor. And if the "hall" is also squeezed by a giant press to pressures of hundreds of thousands of atmospheres, the task seems impossible. The authors of the new study found an ingenious solution.