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Superconductivity: Lntroduction

Superconductivity was initially a scientific curiosity but now has applications like MRI. The discovery of superconductivity was not dramatic - when Kamerlingh Onnes succeeded in liquefying helium in 1908, he measured the resistivity of metals at low temperatures. His second metal, mercury, showed an unorthodox behavior where its resistivity suddenly decreased to such a small value that it could not be measured, and has remained unmeasurable ever since. This lossless phenomenon was so extraordinary that it defied theories for half a century, giving birth to a new theorem that all theories of superconductivity existing at that time were wrong.

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Nurul Fahmi Arief
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29 views

Superconductivity: Lntroduction

Superconductivity was initially a scientific curiosity but now has applications like MRI. The discovery of superconductivity was not dramatic - when Kamerlingh Onnes succeeded in liquefying helium in 1908, he measured the resistivity of metals at low temperatures. His second metal, mercury, showed an unorthodox behavior where its resistivity suddenly decreased to such a small value that it could not be measured, and has remained unmeasurable ever since. This lossless phenomenon was so extraordinary that it defied theories for half a century, giving birth to a new theorem that all theories of superconductivity existing at that time were wrong.

Uploaded by

Nurul Fahmi Arief
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Superconductivity

. I go on for ever. Tennyson The Brook

14.1 lntroduction
Superconductivity u'as a scientific curiosify for a long tirne. but by no'"v there are some actual applications like producing high rnagnetic tlelds for magnctic
resonilnce irnaging. and there are lots of potential applications. The big prize rvould of course be superconductive lines for power transmission which would eliminate losses. But quite apart from applications. I feel that some acquaintance u'ith superconductivity should be part of modern engineering education. Superconductiviry is, after all, such an extraordinary phenomenon. so much in contrast u'ith everything we are used to. It is literarily out of this r',.orld. Our u'orld is classical, but superconductivif,v is a quantum phenomenon-a quantunt phenomenon on macroscopic scale. The wavefunctions. tbr example. that lead en artificial existence in quanfum mechanics proper appear in superconductir i$' ls measureble quantities. The discovery of superconductivity was not terv dramatic. When Kamerlingh Onnes (Nobel Prize, 1913) succeeded in liquefuing helium in 1908. he looked round for something',vorth measuring at that temperalure range. His choice fell upon the resistiviry of metals. He tried platinum t-rrst and found that its resistivity continued to decline at lorver temperatures. tendin_e to son.re small but finite value as the temperature approached the absoiute zero. He could have tried a large number of other metals with similar prosaic results. But he rvas in luck. His second metal, mercury, showed quite unorthodox behaviour. Its resistiviry (as shown in Fig. i4. 1) suddenly decreased to such a small value that he was unable to measure it-and no one has succeeded in measuring it ever since. The usual technique is to induce a current in a ring made of superconducting material and measure the magnetic field due to this current. In a normal metal the current would decay in about I 0* l2 s. In a superconductor the current can go round for a considerably longer time-measured not in picoseconds but in years. One of the longest experiments was made somew'here rn the United States; the current was going round and round for three whole years without any detectable decay. Unforfunately, the experiment came to an abrupt end u.hen a research student forgot to fill up the Der.var flask u'ith liquid nitrogen--so the story goes anlnvay. Thus, for all practical purposes we are faced u'ith a real lossless phenomenon. It is so much out of the ordinary that no one quite knew how to approach the problem. Several phenomenological theories were born, but its real cause

0.02 RiRo

0.01

0.(x) 0 20

Fig. 14.1
The resistance of samples of platinum and mercury as a function of temperature (Ro is the resistance
at

0'C).

remained unknown for half a century. Up to 1957 it defled all attempts: so much so, that it gave bifth to a new theorem, namelv that 'all theories of

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