These are tiny pieces of a superconducting material consisting of a niobium film on an aluminium oxide wafer with gaps etched into it.

这是一些细小的超导材料，由一个刻有间隔的氧化铝晶片上的铌薄膜构成。

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The material has high (100) axial orientation, which can be widely applied in catalysts, optical materials, superconducting materials and other fields.

它具有高度的（100）轴取向，可广泛地用于催化剂、光学材料 和超导材料等领域。

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But once the intensity crossed a certain threshold the researchers discovered that larger regions of order began to emerge and, as a result, the material became superconducting.

但是当射线强度超过某一阈值时，研究人员发现较大的有序区域开始出现，最后这块材料变成了超导体。

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Several buffer layers of non-superconducting material are deposited on top to refine the pattern.

ECONOMIST: Inside story

Understanding such social behaviour may hint at ways to design other sorts of superconducting material or even, paradoxically, better insulators.

ECONOMIST: Magnetism