For the first time, physicists have experimentally validated a 1959 conjecture that places limits on how small superconductors can be. Understanding superconductivity (or the lack thereof) on the nanoscale is expected to be important for designing future quantum computers, among other applications.
In 1959, physicist P.W. Anderson conjectured that superconductivity can exist only in objects that are large enough to meet certain criteria. Namely, the object's superconducting gap energy must be larger than its electronic energy level spacing—and this spacing increases as size decreases. The cutoff point (where the two values are equal) corresponds to a volume of about 100 nm3. Until now it has not been possible to experimentally test the Anderson limit due to the challenges in observing superconducting effects at this scale.
In the new study published in Nature Communications, Sergio Vlaic and coauthors at the University Paris Sciences et Lettres and French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) designed a nanosystem that allowed them to experimentally investigate the Anderson limit for the first time.