The effect of negative pressures on the superconductivity of amorphous and crystalline bismuth.

Materials may behave in non-expected ways when subject to unexpected conditions. For example, when Bi was turned into an amorphous phase (a-Bi) unexpectedly it became a superconductor at temperatures below 10 K. Using the superconductivity of the amorphous phase we provided an explanation as to why crystalline bismuth (c-Bi) had not been found to superconduct, and even predicted an upper limit for its superconducting transition temperature T.