Sony Corp is very excited about a new superconducting material that applies the conventional Copper Oxide technology in a quite new manner: Yoshifumi Mori, leader of the research team that developed the new ceramic, says that it is obtained by sintering Neodymium, Cerium, Copper and Oxygen in an inert gas: the team says that the sinter becomes superconducting between minus 240o and 253oC, but that while superconductors including Lanthanum o Yttrium are hole-conducting semiconductors between room temperature and a temperature immediately before they become superconducting, the new material is electron-conductive between room temperature and 237oC below zero, and hole-conductive between 237oC and 240o below zero – in other words the direct of conductivity reverses immediately below the temperature at which the ceramic becomes superconductive.
