Why in News?

• Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru confirms that their material exhibits major properties of superconductivity at ambient temperature and pressure.

Superconductivity:

• Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic flux fields occurring in certain materials, called superconductors, when cooled below a characteristic critical temperature.
• A material is said to be a superconductor if it conducts electricity with zero resistance to the flow of electrons.
• Until now, scientists have been able to make materials superconduct only at temperature much below zero degree C and hence making practical utility very difficult.
• They help build very high efficiency devices leading to huge energy savings.

Silver embedded gold matrix:

• The material that exhibited superconductivity is in the form of nanosized films and pellets made of silver nanoparticles embedded in a gold matrix.
• Interestingly, silver and gold independently do not exhibit superconductivity.