Forward-looking: Cornell University scientists have unveiled a new method for producing superconductors, using 3D printing to create materials with record-setting properties. The advance offers a simplified route to making superconducting components and could accelerate technologies ranging from medical imaging to quantum devices.
The research work, published in Nature Communications, was developed by an interdisciplinary team led by Ulrich Wiesner, a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and includes an all-in-one fabrication process.
Instead of relying on multiple preparation and reassembly steps, the Cornell method uses a specially formulated ink containing copolymers and inorganic nanoparticles. As the ink is deposited through a 3D printer, it naturally self-assembles. Heat treatments then convert the printed structures into porous crystalline superconductors.
The result, the researchers say, is a highly efficient pathway to complex architectures that previously required several rounds of material preparation. Traditional fabrication approaches often involve synthesizing porous materials separately, grinding them into powders, blending them with binding agents, and then reprocessing them through heating. The Cornell process condenses all of this into a single step.
"This has been a long time in the making," Wiesner said. "What this paper shows is that not only can we print these complex shapes, but the mesoscale confinement gives the materials properties that were simply not achievable before."
The research builds on nearly a decade of progress in using soft materials to shape superconductors.
Back in 2016, the Wiesner group demonstrated the first self-assembled superconducting structure using block copolymers – long molecular chains that naturally arrange themselves into repeating nanoscale patterns. By 2021, the same team showed that such soft matter approaches could match the performance of conventional superconducting materials.
The latest study moves beyond those earlier steps. By combining block copolymer self-assembly at the nanoscale, crystalline ordering at the atomic level, and geometric control through 3D printing at the macroscale, the researchers have created superconductors with hierarchical structures at three distinct size ranges.
The most striking result came when the group produced a niobium-nitride superconductor. Because of its porous, nanostructured architecture, the material displayed an upper critical magnetic field between 40 and 50 Tesla – the highest confinement-induced value ever reported for this compound. That property is essential for use in environments with intense magnetic fields, such as superconducting magnets employed in MRI scanners.
Graduate students played a central role in the project. Fei Yu developed and tested the inks used for 3D printing, while Paxton Thetford resolved the chemistry challenges of working with unusually short block copolymers. Faculty collaborators included Bruce van Dover, a Professor in Materials Science; Sol Gruner, professor emeritus in physics; and Julia Thom-Levy, professor and chair of Cornell's Department of Physics.
One breakthrough highlighted in the paper is the ability to correlate polymer structure with superconducting performance. "We've mapped this superconducting property onto a macromolecular design parameter that goes into the synthesis of the material," Wiesner said. "The map tells us which polymer molar mass is needed to achieve a specific superconductor performance, a remarkable correlation."
The researchers say the technique is broadly applicable. It could be adapted to other transition metal compounds, including titanium nitride, and to geometries that are hard to achieve by conventional means. In addition, the porous nature of the material generates unusually high surface areas for compound superconductors – an attribute that may feed into new generations of quantum materials.
"I'm very hopeful that as a new research direction, we'll make it easier and easier to create superconductors with novel properties," Wiesner said. "Cornell is unique in bringing together chemists, physicists and materials scientists to push this field forward."
The study received support from the National Science Foundation and the Cornell University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Additional resources included the FMB beamline at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, which is operated with funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory.