It’s official: graphene has been made into a superconductor in its natural state – which means electrical current can flow through it with zero resistance.

Last year, physicists managed to do this by doping graphene with calcium atoms, but this is the first time researchers have achieved superconductivity in the material without having to alter it. And the results so far show that the material achieves an incredibly rare type of superconductivity that’s even crazier and more powerful than scientists expected.

The new research is a big deal even for a material as innately impressive as graphene, seeing as superconductivity is the key to more efficient electronics, better power grids, and new medical technology.

“It has long been postulated that, under the right conditions, graphene should undergo a superconducting transition, but can’t,” said one of the researchers, Jason Robinson from the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Now, he says his team has managed to awaken that ability. And it appears graphene isn’t just a normal superconductor – it could be conducting current with no resistance as a result of an unconfirmed and elusive type of superconductivity called p-wave state. Further research is needed to confirm this result, but it’s a pretty intriguing possibility.

Already an over-achiever, graphene is a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms that’s super flexible, harder than diamond, and stronger than steel.

But since its discovery in 2004, researchers have suspected that graphene might also have the ability to be a superconductor – which means it could shuttle electrons through it with no resistance at all.

Even materials that are good conductors are still inefficient in comparison to superconductors – for example, energy companies lose about 7 percent of their energy as heat as a result of resistance in the grid…..More Here