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New Superconductor Found "Immune To Magnetism"
Lisandro sends in news that testing of the new class of superconductors we discussed a while back (compounds of iron, lanthanum, and rare earths) has turned up a major surprise: magnetism doesn't shut off the superconducting state. Magnetic fields represent one of three factors that limit expanded applications for superconductors (the others are current density and temperature dependence.) The research will appear in Nature; here's a preprint (PDF).
Ack - looks like caffeinated_bunsen beat me to the punch. But it bears repeating - this paper certainly says nothing like "this superconductor is immune to magnetism". This material has a very high critical magnetic field, and if they figure out how to improve the connectivity then it might even someday be able to carry a current density of engineering significance. But it certainly is not "immune" to magnetism in any qualitatively different way than any other type-II superconductor out there. Still...it's nice to see that high-temperature superconductivity can be observed outside the cuprate family, and this paper (showing that it also has a high critical magnetic field) should spur some serious R&D work outside the theoretical physics community.
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