A material with little resistance to the flow of electricity. Traditional superconductors operate at absolute zero (-460 degrees Fahrenheit; -273 degrees Celsius). Experiments in the 1980s raised the temperature to -321 degrees Fahrenheit. By the late 1990s, superconductivity was demonstrated at an even warmer -164 degrees Fahrenheit.
The major use for superconductors, made of alloys of niobium, is for high-powered magnets in medical imaging machines, particle accelerators and quantum computers. The magnets are cooled with liquid helium or liquid nitrogen. Superconductors are increasingly planned for regular computing to speed up processing. See
Josephson junction,
semiconductor and
quantum computing.