A New Superconductive Material
Superconductivity is a phenomenon that if mastered at scale and low cost, would revolutionize human civilization. This is because, for most high-tech applications, the levels of power or magnetic field required can only be handled by superconducting materials, with any electric resistance leading to excessive overheating.
A long-term issue has been that almost all known superconducting materials are so only at extremely low temperatures, often in the vicinity of 4°K (only 4 degrees above absolute zero).
This makes superconductivity only viable when combined with liquid helium, a cooling fluid that is very difficult to produce through a very energy-intensive process.
For a long time, graphene, a 2D mono-layer of carbon, has been considered as a good candidate for more practical superconduction.
However, it appears that what makes graphene promising could be extended to other materials like tungsten, opening the search for a new superconducting material. This discovery is the result of the work of researchers at Columbia University, the University of Tennessee, and the National Institute for Materials Science (Japan). They published their results in the prestigious Nature1 under the title “Superconductivity in 5.0° twisted bilayer WSe2”.
The Promises of Superconductivity
Cheaper and higher-temperature superconductive material would completely change the possible application of the technology. This would allow for cooling methods like liquid nitrogen, or even just the cooling technology used in freezers storing mRNA vaccines to replace the more energy-intensive alternative.
Among the things that higher-temperature superconductors would make possible can be mentioned:
- Better MRI, with higher resolution and cheaper to build and operate, allows it to become a much more routine medical exam.
- Electromagnetic thrust drive systems (also called magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drives) propel ships through electrifying seawater.
- More powerful and efficient electric engines.
- Higher density and safer batteries with Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES).
- Superconductive limiters, switches, and fuses to improve the electric grid infrastructure.
- Long-distance power transmission without losses, which could boost renewable energy efficiency, for example with solar panels still in the sun powering a city thousands of kilometers away.
- Cheaper and easier to maintain maglev trains or later on Hyperloop systems.
- Sensors/magnetometers (Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices – SQUIDS) for application in industrial settings.
- Superconducting quantum computing
- Defense & Aerospace applications, including radiation shields, electromagnetic launches, magnetic bearings, sensors, railguns, coil guns, lasers, and other energy weapons.
There is a possibility that high-temperature superconductivity can be achieved with copper-substituted lead apatite (CSLA), but this claim is still hotly debated by scientists specialized in this field a few years later.
Graphene Superconductivity
While graphene is a remarkably efficient electricity conductor when in a simple layer, it can become a superconductor when shaped as a “twisted bilayer”. This is when the 2 layers are slightly misaligned, with a 1.1° difference apparently the magic angle for graphene.
In November 2024, it was demonstrated mathematically that such a bilayer could stay superconducting at temperatures as high as 60°K (-213°C / -351 °F).
Since 2020, another material has been suspected to display a similar characteristic: tungsten-selenium (WSe2).
Source: Max Planck Institute
Tungsten Selenium Superconductivity
Until now, phenomena correlated to superconductivity had been detected in many materials part of the so-called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) class.
However, the new research definitely confirms superconductivity in 5.0° (angle of difference between layers, not temperature) twisted bilayer WSe2.
This was especially strong at low temperatures in this experiment (426 millikelvins), but it nevertheless demonstrates that bilayer superconductivity can be performed by other layered materials than graphene.
The twisted bilayer WSe2 also displayed a sharp boundary between the superconducting and magnetic phases at low temperatures, which could explain the underlying mechanisms explaining why it is superconductive.
Better Than Graphene?
If TMD materials can be superconducting, they might actually be superior to graphene.
The reason is that TMD materials also display many other desirable qualities that are absent in graphene, like native band gap, large spin-orbit coupling, spin-valley locking, and magnetism.
In that respect, this seems similar to another type of advanced meta-materials, kagome materials, which also display superconductivity together with magnetism, while these are usually 2 phenomena that are not happening at the same time.
Overall, it seems that the field of superconductivity is making very quick progress and shedding the discipline’s previous assumptions about what is and what is not possible.
Tungsten Company
If tungsten bilayers prove to be superconductive, this would be an important additional use case for the ultra-hard metal, already used in many military applications, the semiconductor industry, and advanced manufacturing.
We covered the investment case for tungsten in detail in the October 2024 report “Tungsten – The Secret High-Tech Metal”.
Since then, China has announced restrictions on the export of tungsten, a metal 80% of which is produced by China. Which leaves very few companies able to supply Western industries, independently from the Chinese supply chain.
Almonty Industries
Almonty Industries Inc. (AII.TO +19.72%)
Almonty is a tungsten miner that is currently mostly produced from a mine in Portugal, in operation for the last 125 years.
The company has been working on expanding the Portuguese mine and owns undeveloped deposits in Spain.
Source: Almonty
The company’s most important project is the ongoing development of a new mine in Sangdong, South Korea. The mine contains more inferred resources than all of its other deposits combined.
Source: Almonty
As one of the only active and producing tungsten miners in Western countries, Almonty is a key strategic supplier for the defense industry. So it is an important company for reducing dependence on Chinese supply.
The Sangdong mine’s location makes it a perfect supplier to the defense industry, with South Korea a new giant in mass production of “low techs” military gear like tanks, artillery, and ammunition (compared to less tungsten-demanding fighter jets, aircraft carriers, etc.).
While China prepares to open a huge tungsten mine in Kazakhstan, Almonty is poised to “substantially shift the politics involved with securing tungsten” when the Almonty Korea Tungsten Project’s Sangdong mine comes online within a few months. When it begins production, it will be one of the world’s largest tungsten mines, accounting for 30% of the non-Chinese supply.
Lewis Black, director, president, and CEO of Almonty Industries
Almonty should start producing tungsten from the Korean mine in early to mid-2025.
Because of its strategic position as essentially the sole large supplier in the West, Almonty was offered a guaranteed price by Plansee. Plansee is a high-performance metal manufacturer and one of Almonty’s larger clients, as well as the owner of 15% of the company.
The minimum guaranteed price was $235/MTU (metric ton unit), with no upper threshold. As Sangdong Mine is aiming for cash costs of $110/mtu, this should virtually ensure a high-profit margin for the project.
With a lucky almost perfect timing between the upcoming opening of Sangdong and a new trade war between Trump’s America and China, the stock price has reacted strongly and rose by 40% in just 2 days following the announcement of tungsten export restriction from China.
Study Reference:
1. Guo, Y., Pack, J., Swann, J. et al. (2025) Superconductivity in 5.0° twisted bilayer WSe2. Nature 637, 839–845. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08381-1