WATERLOO - A world-leading authority in superconducting materials research will make a special visit to the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN).

Hideo Hosono, of the Frontier Research Centre as well as the materials and structures laboratory at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, will spend a week at the University of Waterloo starting Sept. 18. Besides visits and discussions, Hosono will deliver a special public lecture on superconductivity on Monday, Sept. 21 at 3:30 p.m. in the William G. Davis Centre.

Hosono's work was recently profiled in a Scientific American article entitled An Iron Key to High-Temperature Superconductivity. A copy is available at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=an-iron-key-to-high-temp.

"We are very excited to have Dr. Hosono as a WIN distinguished lecturer," said Arthur Carty, executive director of WIN. "Hosono has created great excitement in the science community by re-energizing the search for a 'holy grail' of materials research - the development of room temperature superconductors."

In practical terms, superconductivity holds the key to such things as lose-less electricity transmission (current transmission lines lose significant amounts of energy through heat loss), transportation via magnetic levitation and super-strong magnets for medical imaging.

It is thought that many applications relating to energy use and conservation will ultimately be discovered through this research.

Hosono's presentation, entitled New Frontiers of Materials Research: >From Functional Transparent Oxides to High Temperature Superconductors, will unlock the mystery of high temperature superconductivity.