Magnetic atoms disrupt superconductivity on atomic scale

17 Jun 2002

As part of their microscopic study of magnetism, Ali Yazdani and his colleagues at IBM Almaden deposit single manganese (Mn) and gadolinium (Gd) atoms, each ofwhich exerts magnetic forces, onto a niobium metal, which is a superconductor at low temperatures.

By measuring the tunneling current that flows from the surface to the probe of a scanning tunneling microscope, the researchers detected the loss of superconductivityin the vicinity of the isolated magnetic atoms. This represents the first time a local loss of the superconducting state at the atomic scale has been detected. Theresearchers theorize that the atoms break up nearby electron pairs which constitute supercurrents.