Mi Jiang

In a three-story building made of nickel and oxygen, two residents are missing. Physicists call these vacant spots holes, and where they sit determines whether the material becomes a superconductor — a lossless conductor. Quantum mechanics describes such holes as real particles with positive charge.

A bridge made of two rows of planks bends under the feet of pedestrians, and each step gets a boost from the elastic motion of the deck. A similar principle underlies superconductivity: electrons glide without resistance because the atomic lattice itself adapts to them. In nickel-based materials, this picture has long been elusive.