The concept of a frictionless flow of electricity through a material is known as superconductivity, and BYU researcher Branton Campbell has helped solve a mystery that had been troubling the field for years.

The research community is still a ways off from this goal of room temperature superconductivity, but a new study in the journal Nature Materials, which included Campbell as an author, could someday aid in that quest.

Questions lingered about why two types of copper-oxide ceramics - each able to achieve superconductivity - appeared to be different.

One type of ceramic will not conduct electricity unless it has been through a high temperature chemical treatment.

This process, known as electron-doping, allows this material to achieve superconductivity.

Another, more commonly used class of ceramic materials can superconduct electricity without the high temperature treatment, he said.

Campbell helped study the electron-doped ceramics at an atomic scale. The research involved special X-ray beams to determine the structure of the material. The team sought to understand how the heating process created superconducting ceramics.

"It's like a cookie recipe," said Stephan Rosenkranz, a study author from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. "You have to do it the right way or they come out wrong."

Understanding how the recipe for electron-doped ceramics works should help researchers produce more pure versions of these copper-oxide materials, maybe without heating, he said.

Using the current method, the electron-doped ceramics start off with a series of defects, which prevent the flow of electricity, Campbell said. If you think of the defects as bits of dirt on a floor, the heating process sweeps all the grime into one corner. The rest of the material is then clean and is able to conduct electricity.

The discovery comes 20 years after the announcement that a material had been created that could superconduct electricity at a "high temperature," which was still well below the freezing point of water.

Campbell said the discovery ignited a race to reach room temperature superconductivity. If the start of that contest was a sprint, it has evolved into a marathon, as many early participants gave up on the problem.

Other institutions in the project included the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.; National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research, Gaithersburg, Md., and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

glavine@sltrib.com