Strange brew

To make the condensate the researchers cooled potassium gas to a billionth of a degree above absolute zero - the temperature at which matter stops moving.

They confined the gas in a vacuum chamber and used magnetic fields and laser light to manipulate the potassium atoms into pairing up and forming the fermionic condensate.

Jin pointed out that her team worked with a supercooled gas, which provides little opportunity for everyday application. But the way the potassium atoms acted suggested there should be a way to turn it into a room-temperature solid.

It could be a step closer to an everyday, usable superconductor - a material that conducts electricity without losing any of its energy.

"If you had a superconductor you could transmit electricity with no losses," Jin said.

"Right now something like 10% of all electricity we produce in the United States is lost. It heats up wires. It doesn't do anybody any good."

Superconductor technology is being fed into the development of magnetically levitated trains. Free of friction these vehicles glide along at high speeds using a fraction of the energy of conventional trains.