Researchers discover electroplated rhenium’s unexpected superconductive characteristics

Last September, CIRES chemist and instrument designer Don David and colleagues Dave Pappas and Xian Wu at the National Institute of Standards and Technology discovered a powerful new plated metal combination that superconducts at easily attained temperatures—paving the road for the next critical steps in the development of cutting-edge supercomputers. David and his colleagues just published the new recipe: an ultrathin layer of rhenium sandwiched between layers of gold, each measuring 1/1000th the diameter of a human hair that can superconduct at critical temperature over 6 Kelvin.