Physicists at The Ohio State University say they have uncovered a surprising new way to control superconductivity — the phenomenon in which electricity flows through certain materials with absolutely no energy loss. By pairing twisted layers of graphene with a synthetic diamond-like crystal, the team was able to effectively switch superconductivity on and off, simply by changing what surrounds the material.
The findings, published in Nature Physics on May 29, 2026, also hint that twisted bilayer graphene may be playing by a different rulebook than the conventional superconductors physicists have studied for a century.
Why superconductivity matters
Superconductors carry electric current with zero resistance, but only when chilled below a critical temperature. If engineers could find a material that did this near room temperature, it could transform the power grid, computing, and medical imaging — all by removing energy waste from the equation.
Despite decades of work, the underlying mechanism that lets electrons in many modern superconductors pair up and travel without resistance remains a deep puzzle. Cracking it could open the door to materials that work without expensive cryogenic cooling.
The graphene experiment
The Ohio State team, led by physics professor Chun Ning "Jeanie" Lau, focused on twisted bilayer graphene — two atom-thin sheets of carbon stacked and rotated slightly relative to each other. At a special "magic angle," the material has been known since 2018 to behave as a superconductor at extremely low temperatures.
For this study, the researchers placed the twisted graphene in contact with strontium titanate, a crystalline material whose electrical properties can be precisely tuned. By adjusting the dielectric environment, the team could strengthen or weaken the way electrons inside the graphene interacted with one another.
The result: superconductivity switched on and off depending on the surroundings.
"Electrons normally repel each other, but in superconductors they form pairs," Lau explained. "This pair formation is the key to a superconductor''s ability to conduct electricity without dissipation. Our evidence suggests that electrons themselves, depending on their sensitivity to their nearby environment, are unexpectedly important for material changes."
A twist on the textbook
Here is where things got strange. In conventional superconductors, weakening the repulsive forces between electrons usually makes superconductivity stronger. In the twisted graphene system, the opposite happened. As certain adjustments were tuned higher, superconductivity got weaker.
That counterintuitive result suggests twisted bilayer graphene may obey rules that have not yet been written. "Despite the fundamental questions that still need answers, this work basically provides a path toward a new type of physics mechanism," Lau said.
The bigger goal
The breakthrough is small in size — graphene flakes are only a few atoms thick — but potentially large in implication. If researchers can fine-tune superconductivity from the outside instead of redesigning the material itself, the path to higher-temperature, more practical superconductors gets a lot shorter.
Many promising high-temperature superconductors have stubborn limitations. The Ohio State team believes the environmental-tuning approach could give engineers a new lever to pull. Lead author Xueshi Gao, a Ohio State PhD student, said the team expects the technique to be useful across many superconducting systems beyond graphene.
"The mechanism of superconductivity in the twisted bilayer graphene system we used is still not well understood," Gao said. "But our result can shed light on and help people to better understand the concept when applying it to future" devices.
For now, the experiment runs in a chilled laboratory. But the dream it sharpens — a world wired with lossless circuits, lossless power lines, and lossless computers — just got a little more tangible.
