Word: yttrium
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...colleagues first stunned the research community six years ago by showing that a compound containing the exotic element yttrium could become a superconductor at 98 degrees on the Kelvin scale favored by physicists (that's a not-so-balmy -283 degreesF). That record, broken repeatedly, is now as outdated as the 19-foot pole vault, and last month the contest heated up again. First Chu announced in the journal Nature that a mercury-based compound could superconduct at 153 degreesK (-184 degreesF), a startling 20 degrees higher than the old standard. He got that result by subjecting the material...