Superconductors carry electricity without resistance, a rare and useful property that makes them important for things like MRI machines and quantum computers. Normally, they’re made from heavy, fragile materials using long, complicated methods that involve very high heat and pressure. But at Cornell University, scientists have taken a completely different approach. They used a 3D printer, a soft polymer ink, and a bit of heat to create a superconductor that not only works but breaks performance records. And they did it in a single step.

In an incredible breakthrough published in Nature Communications, the team unveiled a new 3D printing method that turns a custom-formulated ink made of nanoparticles and soft polymer molecules into record-breaking superconductors. These polymers, known as block copolymers, behave more like gels than rigid plastics, and naturally organize themselves into nanoscale patterns during printing. This natural order helps shape the material as it prints, creating tiny pores and structures that make it work better. Unlike regular plastics, these soft polymers aren’t used to make things strong or stiff; they help build the material’s structure from the inside.

“It’s been a long time in the making,” said Ulrich Wiesner, the Cornell professor who led the study. “But now we can print complex shapes, and the material gains properties we couldn’t get before.”

The Breakthrough

At the heart of this method is the specially formulated ink. When printed, this material “self-assembles into an orderly nanostructure.” Then, with a bit of heat, it transforms into a porous, crystalline superconductor.

It’s a simple, one-step method that avoids the long, messy process typically used to make superconductors. Normally, the materials are made separately, ground into powders, mixed with glue-like binders, and then heated again. But Cornell’s approach skips all of that.

To carry it out, the team used a direct ink writing setup built around a Hyrel SR 3D printer. The ink was extruded from a syringe into a petri dish filled with hexane, which supported the structure during printing. This method made it possible to build precise, delicate shapes, like woodpiles and helices, while keeping the material stable. After printing, the parts were aged and heat-treated to complete the transformation, explained the researchers in their study.

Even more impressive is that the printed superconductors achieved an upper critical magnetic field of 40 to 50 Tesla; that is the highest ever recorded for this material, niobium-nitride (NbN), when made at the nanoscale. This means it can work in extremely strong magnetic fields, like those used in MRI machines, quantum computers, and fusion magnets. Making those devices better, faster, and more efficient depends on materials that can perform in these extreme environments. And this one does.

3D printed structures derived from BCP-niobia sol with periodic atomic, mesoscale, and macroscopic lattices.

Three Layers of Design

The researchers explain in their publication, titled “Hierarchically ordered porous transition metal compounds from one-pot type 3D printing approaches,” that part of what makes this breakthrough so powerful is how the material is structured on several levels at once.

On the smallest scale, the atoms arrange themselves into a crystal, giving the material its basic strength and conductivity.

On a slightly larger scale, the soft polymer molecules organize into pores and patterns. This adds structure and helps shape how the material behaves.

And on the visible scale, the 3D printer builds full shapes (like spirals or coils) that are useful for real-world applications.

This mix of tiny, medium, and large-scale design is rare. It’s what gives the printed superconductor its record-setting performance.

A copolymer-inorganic nanoparticle ink is deposited during the 3D printing process, where it self-assembles before being heat-treated into a crystalline superconductor.

This is, of course, a win for superconductors, but it also shows how far 3D printing has come, evolving from metals and hard plastics. With soft materials like block copolymers, 3D printing can now be used to build quantum-ready materials.

Wiesner and his team started exploring self-assembling superconductors back in 2016. By 2021, they showed these methods could match traditional superconductor performance. And now, in 2025, they have found a way to beat conventional performance using additive manufacturing.

One of the most interesting aspects of this new process is scalability. The Cornell team believes it can be adapted to other transition metal compounds, like titanium nitride, and customized for future electronics and quantum devices. And with the ability to print complex 3D shapes, it unlocks geometries that are impossible to achieve with conventional manufacturing.

Schematic of the “one-pot” processes to prepare transition metal oxides and nitrides with periodic structures on three different length scales.

A Predictable Path Forward

What’s more, the team created a “map” that connects the polymer’s design to the final superconductor’s performance. That means they can now predict how changes in the material’s chemistry will affect its electrical properties.

Ulrich Wiesner. Image courtesy of Cornell University.

“We’ve mapped this superconducting property onto a macromolecular design parameter that goes into the synthesis of the material. That’s something no one has shown before,” Wiesner said. “The map tells us which polymer molar mass is needed to achieve a specific superconductor performance, a remarkable correlation.”

This work is the result of collaboration between chemists, physicists, and materials scientists at Cornell. Graduate students Fei Yu and Paxton Thetford played key roles in developing the ink and solving chemical challenges. The research was also supported by Cornell’s advanced lab facilities, including its Materials Research Center and the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), which was used to help analyze the structure of the 3D printed superconductors; this was funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The team now plans to explore other materials and shapes, hoping to unlock new applications in energy, medicine, and computing.

“I’m very hopeful that as a new research direction, we’ll make it easier and easier to create superconductors with novel properties,” Wiesner concluded. “Cornell is unique in bringing together chemists, physicists and materials scientists to push this field forward. This study demonstrates just how much potential there is in soft matter approaches to quantum materials.”

Images courtesy of the Wiesner Group/Cornell University