This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Scientists at Rutgers and in Estonia have used invisible light to look into tiny magnetic whirlpools, called vortices, inside a superconductor, revealing details that could help researchers develop better materials for carrying electricity. Their study, published in Physical Review Letters, distinguishes two groups of particles trapped within those vortices and measures properties that conventional techniques couldn't readily separate.
"To improve superconductors, scientists need to understand what vortices contain and how they behave," said Girsh Blumberg, a distinguished professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and a co-author of the study. "This study provides a new way to look inside them." Each vortex consists of circulating electrical current around a narrow core where superconductivity is weakened. The surrounding material remains superconducting.
Superconductors can carry electricity without losing energy as heat and are used to create powerful magnets in MRI scanners and particle accelerators. But magnetic fields can produce tiny vortices inside many superconductors. When these vortices move, they cause energy losses.
Understanding their contents and behavior could help scientists develop materials that perform more reliably in strong magnetic fields. "It's like Swiss cheese, with many holes," Blumberg said. The "holes" in this comparison are vortices.
Particles confined within them follow the rules of quantum physics, which govern matter at extremely small scales. In 1964, physicists predicted these trapped particles would occupy separate energy levels. The levels resemble the rungs of a ladder.
A particle can move from one allowed level to another by absorbing the right amount of energy. Earlier experiments had detected these states. Blumberg and his colleagues wanted to learn more about transitions between them and distinguish the contributions of different groups of particles.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
