Hidden patchwork found inside superconductor studied for 40 years

University of Warwick chemists, working with France's ESRF synchrotron, used advanced 3D imaging to look deep inside a copper-based cuprate superconductor for the first time. They found that the crystal, long assumed to be uniform, is actually a patchwork of different atomic arrangements. Published in Physical Review Letters, the finding challenges decades of assumptions about high-temperature superconductors.