Oxide materials display within the same family of compounds a variety of exciting electronic properties ranging from ferroelectricity to ferromagnetism and superconductivity. These systems are often characterized by strong electronic correlations, complex phase diagrams and competing ground states.

The MagLab exists to provide its international user community with unique magnets and expertise spanning condensed matter physics, materials research, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and biomedicine.

The new iron-based superconductors have occasioned great excitement because transition temperatures are high, and it is hoped that the existence of a second class of such superconductors in addition to cuprates will lead to new insights into the essential ingredients for high temperature superconductivity.

A supercurrent can flow through a weak link—such as a thin insulating barrier, nanowire or molecule—between two superconductors. This famous effect, for which B. Josephson received the Nobel Prize in 1972, has had a great impact on both fundamental and applied science.

Superconductivity is a magical property of matter, whereby electrons enter spontaneously into a macroscopic quantum dance in which electricity flows perfectly. Were this state sustainable at room temperature, our technological world would be profoundly transformed.