From Japanese basket weaving art to nanotechnology with ion beams

The properties of high-temperature superconductors can be tailored by the introduction of artificial defects. An international research team around physicist Wolfgang Lang at the University of Vienna has succeeded in producing the world's densest complex nano arrays for anchoring flux quanta, the fluxons. This was achieved by irradiating the superconductor with a helium-ion microscope at the University of Tübingen, a technology that has only recently become available. The researchers were inspired by a traditional Japanese basket weaving art. The results have been published recently in ACS Applied Nano Materials, a journal of the renowned American Chemical Society.