Physics Department News

Tenam Cuauhtémoc, a 1st year PhD student in Superconductivity and Magnetism, has been awarded the Best Poster Prize at the 2025 ISIS Student Meeting, hosted by the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source (world-leading centre for research at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) Link opens in a new windowin Oxfordshire.

The poster, entitled “High Temperature Superconductivity in Nickelates”, presented the recent groundbreaking discovery of superconductivity in the lanthanum nickelate La₃Ni₂O₇, which exhibits superconductivity at 80 K under pressures exceeding 14 GPa. This finding establishes nickelates as a promising parallel to cuprates for gaining deeper insights into the general principles governing unconventional high temperature superconductivity, the exact mechanism of which remains elusive.

Tenam says: "I'm delighted to receive this prize and grateful to ISIS for organising a great conference."

Image shows Tenam presenting at the ISIS Student Meeting.

Tenam is growing high quality single crystals of La₃Ni₂O₇ and La₄Ni₃O₁₀ by the optical floating zone and flux techniques. To date, he has characterised the magnetic and transport properties of La₃Ni₂O₇ at ambient pressures in-house. Tenam will use neutron scattering at central facilities such as ISIS to elucidate the role of defects in stabilising the charge density wave, a possible precursor to superconductivity. Furthermore, he plans to characterise the superconducting transition by measuring the magnetic, structural and transport properties under high pressures.