Some superconductors can also carry currents of spin

[cdev]

Isn't this interesting!

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-superconductors-currents.html


Some Superconductors Can Also Carry Currents of 'Spin'

Sarah Collins

University of Cambridge 

Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. have demonstrated that certain superconductors are also capable of carrying currents of spin. The team thinks the successful combination of superconductivity and spin could lead to a revolution in high-performance computing by dramatically reducing energy consumption. The researchers discovered a set of materials that encourage the pairing of spin-aligned electrons, enabling spin current to flow more effectively in the superconducting state than in the normal state. The team used a multi-layered stack of metal films in which each layer was only a few nanometers thick, and determined when a microwave field was applied to the films, it caused the central magnetic layer to emit a spin current into the adjacent superconductor. "The surprising result was that when we added a platinum layer to the superconductor, the spin current in the superconducting state was greater than in the normal state," says Cambridge professor Mark Blamire.