Although high-temperature superconducting cuprate materials were discovered nearly 30 years ago, scientists have yet to fully understand how they work. Now, with the $912 million National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) coming on line at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), researchers will have a new tool that could lead to a more complete theory of the mechanism by which the compounds become superconducting, says John Hill, x-ray group leader in BNL’s condensed-matter physics and materials science group.
“The NSLS-II will be the most advanced synchrotron in the world when in full operation. It will have the most intense beams, will be the most stable, and will have the best instrumentation,” says Steve Dierker, BNL’s associate director for photon sciences. The new machine, under construction since 2009 (see Physics Today,March 2009, page 24), will be capable of nanometer-scale measurements, a vast improvement over the NSLS’s micron-scale resolution.
The higher brightness...
