An international research team, with the participation of Christoph Heil from the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) is now presenting a systematic approach to finding such materials. In a perspective article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a strategy paper that assesses the current state of research and sets out future directions, the 16 authors state that there are no fundamental physical laws that rule out superconductivity at ambient temperature.

The holy grail of modern day condensed matter research. I know some who simply discard it as wishful thinking, but i also know some of the brightest who are putting all their weight behind it. I hope to see it in my lifetime...

The researchers emphasize that under the right conditions, superconductivity is an almost universal property of non-magnetic metals and not a rare phenomenon. As impressive proof of the recent progress in this field, the strategy paper refers to an accompanying study that was carried out as part of the same research program and appears in the same issue of PNAS; namely that researchers at the University of Houston have set a new record with a process known as pressure quenching.

The mercury-based compound Hg-1223, the record holder for superconductivity at normal pressure since 1993, was first cooled to near absolute zero and simultaneously exposed to a pressure of up to 300,000 times the normal atmospheric pressure. As a result, the critical temperature at which the material becomes superconducting rose from 133 Kelvin to up to 151 Kelvin.

After the pressure was quickly released, the increased critical temperature was maintained and thus represented the highest transition temperature ever measured at ambient pressure. This effect persisted for a fortnight after the experiment and was reproduced in five different samples.

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According to Heil, this opens up completely new possibilities: "If we combine these precise calculations with machine learning and artificial intelligence, we can now search the huge space of possible material combinations much more efficiently and accurately than ever before. This is precisely the core of our approach: to link theory, simulation and experiment more closely in order to systematically pursue the path to practically usable superconductors."

The strategy paper therefore ends not with a summary, but with an appeal to the entire research community in physics, chemistry and materials science. The aim is to join forces worldwide, and—based on modern AI and simulation methods—to systematically push the limits of superconductivity towards room temperature.