Cracking the Code of Copper Superconductors With Supercomputers

By U.S. Department of Energy November 26, 2024

Collected at: https://scitechdaily.com/cracking-the-code-of-copper-superconductors-with-supercomputers/

Recent studies using advanced supercomputing have focused on the dynamics within copper-based superconductors, aiming to develop materials that are efficient at higher temperatures and could improve electronic devices significantly.

Over the past 35 years, scientists have been studying a remarkable class of materials known as superconductors. When cooled to specific temperatures, these materials allow electricity to flow without any resistance.

A research team utilizing the Summit supercomputer has been delving into the behavior of these superconductors, particularly focusing on how negatively charged particles interact with the smallest units of light within the material. This interaction triggers sudden and dramatic changes in the material’s properties and holds the key to understanding how certain copper-based superconductors function.

Exploring Particle Interactions

The team aimed to explore how these particle interactions evolve in densely packed environments where many particles are interacting simultaneously. Their findings could provide valuable insights into a distinct group of copper-based superconductors that are more efficient than conventional ones. These materials have the added advantage of operating at relatively higher temperatures, making them a promising candidate for future energy-efficient electronic devices.

Modeling and Simulation Insights

Researchers modeled the complicated interactions between negatively charged electron particles in a material and the interactions between electrons and phonons. Phonons are the smallest units of vibrational energy in a material.

These models involved millions of particle states, with each state comprising distinct characteristics. The result is one of the team’s largest calculations to date of copper-based superconductors. The method gives the researchers a framework to study the so-called “self-energy” of electrons.

The results could help the team get closer to understanding the mechanisms of a unique family of copper-based superconductors, which would be more efficient than typical copper-based superconductors.

Reference: “Unmasking the Origin of Kinks in the Photoemission Spectra of Cuprate Superconductors” by Zhenglu Li, Meng Wu, Yang-Hao Chan and Steven G. Louie, 8 April 2021, Physical Review Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.146401

The work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science through the Theory of Materials Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and by the National Science Foundation. Advanced codes were provided by the Center for Computational Study of Excited-State Phenomena in Energy Materials (C2SEPEM). The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility provided computational resources in this study. The Texas Advanced Computing Center and National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center provided additional computational resources in this study.