Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity perfectly, without any loss of energy, but so far they only work at very low temperature. Achieving superconductivity at room temperature would cause a technological revolution and transform the way electricity is transported. Professor Taillefer’s two-year Killam Research Fellowship project is to elucidate how electrons behave in copper oxides, the materials that host the strongest type of superconductivity, and understand how to increase the maximal temperature at which they superconduct. He will investigate their electronic properties near the quantum critical point discovered recently when applying the strongest magnetic fields in the world. He believes this point is the key organizing principle of electron behaviour in copper oxides.
