SUPERCONDUCTORS

Superconductors are inter metallic alloy or compound that will conduct electricity without resistance, below a certain temperature. Once set in motion, electric current will flow forever in a closed loop of semiconducting material making it the closest thing to perpetual motion in nature. Scientist refer to superconductivity as a Macroscopic Quantum Phenomenon. Not only have the limits of superconductivity not yet been reached, but the theories that explain superconductor behavior seem to be constantly under review. In 1911 superconductivity was first observed in mercury by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes of Leiden University.

When he cooled it to the temperature of liquid helium, 4 degrees Kelvin (-452F, -269C), its resistance suddenly disappeared. The Kelvin scale represents an "absolute" scale of temperature. Thus, it was necessary for Onnes to come within 4 degrees of the coldest temperature that is theoretically attainable to witness the phenomenon of superconductivity. Later, in 1913, he won a Nobel Prize in physics for his research in this area.

The next great milestone in understanding how matter behaves at extreme cold temperatures occurred in 1933. German researchers Walther Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld discovered that a superconducting material will repel a magnetic field. A magnet

moving by a conductor induces currents in the conductor. This is the principle on which the electric generator operates. But, in a superconductor the induced currents exactly mirror the field that would have otherwise penetrated the superconducting material - causing the magnet to be repulsed. This phenomenon is known as strong diamagnetism and is today often referred to as the "Meissner effect" (an eponym). The Meissner effect is so strong that a magnet can actually be levitated over a superconductive material.

The first widely-accepted theoretical understanding of superconductivity was advanced in 1957 by American physicists John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Schrieffer (above). Their Theories of Superconductivity became know as the BCS theory- derived from the first letter of each man's last name and won them a Nobel prize in 1972. The mathematically-complex BCS theory explained superconductivity at temperatures close to absolute zero for elements and simple alloys. However, at higher temperatures and with different superconductor systems, the BCS theory has subsequently become inadequate to fully explain how superconductivity is occurring. Another significant theoretical advancement came in 1962 when Brian D. Josephson (above), a graduate student at Cambridge University, predicted that electrical current would flow between 2 superconducting materials - even when they are separated by a non-superconductor or insulator. His prediction was later confirmed and won him a share of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics. This tunneling phenomenon is today known as the "Josephson effect" and has been applied to electronic devices such as the SQUID, an instrument capabable of detecting even the weakest magnetic fields. (Below SQUID graphic courtesy Quantum Design.)

BCS THEORY

BCS theory was proposed by Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer (BCS) in 1957 is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since its discovery in 1911. The theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a "condensation" of pairs of electrons into a boson-like state. The theory is also used in nuclear physics to describe the pairing interaction between nucleons in an atomic nucleus. At sufficiently low temperatures, electrons near the Fermi surface become unstable against the formation of Cooper pairs. Cooper showed such binding will occur in the presence of an attractive potential, no matter how weak. In conventional superconductors, an attraction is generally attributed to an electronlattice interaction. The BCS theory, however, requires only that the potential be attractive, regardless of its origin. In the BCS framework, superconductivity is a macroscopic effect which results from "condensation" of Cooper pairs. These have some bosonic properties, while bosons, at sufficiently low temperature, can form a large Bose-Einstein condensate. Superconductivity was simultaneously explained by Nikolay Bogoliubov, by means of the so-called Bogoliubov transformations. In many superconductors, the attractive interaction between electrons (necessary for pairing) is brought about indirectly by the interaction between the electrons and the vibrating crystal lattice (the phonons). Roughly speaking the picture is the following: An electron moving through a conductor will attract nearby positive charges in the lattice. This deformation of the lattice causes another electron, with opposite "spin", to move into the region of higher positive charge density. The two electrons then become correlated. There are a lot of such electron pairs in a superconductor, so that they overlap very strongly, forming a highly collective "condensate". Breaking of one pair results in changing of energies of remained macroscopic number of pairs. If the required energy is higher than the energy provided by kicks from oscillating atoms in the conductor (which is true at low temperatures), then the electrons will stay paired and resist all kicks, thus not experiencing resistance. Thus, the collective behaviour of "condensate" is a crucial ingredient of superconductivity. In condensed matter physics, a Cooper pair or BCS pair is two electrons (or other fermions) that are bound together at low temperatures in a certain manner first described in 1956 by American physicist Leon Cooper. Cooper showed that an arbitrarily small attraction between electrons in a metal can cause a paired state of electrons to have a lower energy than the Fermi energy, which implies that the pair is bound. In conventional superconductors, this attraction is due to the electron phonon interaction. The Cooper pair state is responsible for superconductivity. Although Cooper pairing is a quantum effect, the reason for the pairing can be seen from a simplified classical explanation. An electron in a metal normally behaves as a free particle. The electron is repelled from other electrons due to their negative charge, but it also attracts the positive ions that make up the rigid lattice of the metal. This attraction distorts the ion lattice, moving the ions slightly toward the electron, increasing the positive charge density of the lattice in the vicinity. This positive charge can attract other electrons. At long distances this attraction between electrons due to the displaced ions can overcome the electrons' repulsion due to their negative charge, and cause them to pair up. The rigorous quantum mechanical explanation shows that the effect is due to electronphonon interactions. The energy of the pairing interaction is quite weak, of the order of 10 eV, and thermal energy can easily break the pairs. So only at low temperatures are a significant number of the electrons in a metal in Cooper pairs. The electrons in a pair are not necessarily close together; because the interaction is long range, paired electrons may still be many hundreds of nanometers apart. This distance is usually greater than the average interelectron distance, so many Cooper pairs can occupy the same space. Electrons have half spin, so they are fermions, but a Cooper pair is a composite boson as its total spin is integer (0 or 1). This means the wave functions are symmetric under particle interchange, and they are allowed to be in the same state. The tendency for all the Cooper pairs in a body to 'condense' into the same ground quantum state is responsible for the peculiar properties of superconductivity.
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The BCS theory is also applicable to other fermion systems, such as helium-3. Thus, similar pairs formed by two helium-3 atoms are also called Cooper pairs. These are responsible for the superfluidity of helium3 at low temperatures. Recently it has been shown that Cooper pairs can also be composed by two bosons. Here the pairing is supported by entanglement in an optical lattice. TYPE 1 SUPERCONDUCTOR

The Type 1 category of superconductors is mainly comprised of metals and metalloids that show some conductivity at room temperature. They require incredible cold to slow down molecular vibrations sufficiently to facilitate unimpeded electron flow in accordance with what is known as BCS theory. BCS theory suggests that electrons team up in "Cooper pairs" in order to help each other overcome molecular obstacles - much like race cars on a track drafting each other in order to go faster. Scientists call this process phonon-mediated coupling because of the sound packets generated by the flexing of the crystal lattice. Type 1 superconductors - characterized as the "soft" superconductors - were discovered first and require the coldest temperatures to become superconductive. They exhibit a very sharp transition to a superconducting state (see above graph) and "perfect" diamagnetism - the ability to repel a magnetic field completely. Below is a list of known Type 1 superconductors along with the critical transition temperature (known as Tc) below which each superconducts. The 3rd column gives the lattice structure of the solid that produced the noted Tc. Surprisingly, copper, silver and gold, three of the best metallic conductors, do not rank among the superconductive elements.

TYPE 2 SUPERCONDUCTORS The first superconducting Type 2 compound, an alloy of lead and bismuth, was fabricated in 1930 by W. de Haas and J. Voogd. But, was not recognized as such until later, after the Meissner effect had been discovered. This new category of superconductors was identified by L.V. Shubnikov at the Kharkov Institute of Science and Technology in the Ukraine in 1936(1) when he found two distinct critical magnetic fields (known as Hc1 and Hc2) in PbTl2. The first of the oxide superconductors was created in 1973 by DuPont researcher Art Sleight when Ba(Pb,Bi)O3 was found to have a Tc of 13K. The superconducting oxocuprates followed in 1986. Type 2 superconductors - also known as the "hard" superconductors - differ from Type 1 in that their transition from a normal to a superconducting state is gradual across a region of "mixed state" behavior. Since a Type 2 will allow some penetration by an external magnetic field into its surface, this creates some rather novel mesoscopic phenomena like superconducting "stripes" and "flux-lattice vortices". While there are far too many to list in totality, some of the more interesting Type 2 superconductors are listed

below by similarity and with descending Tc's. Where available, the lattice structure of the system is also noted. Meissner effect The Meissner effect is the expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor during its transition to the superconducting state. The German physicists Walther Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld discovered the phenomenon in 1933 by measuring the magnetic field distribution outside superconducting tin and lead samples.[1] The samples, in the presence of an applied magnetic field, were cooled below what is called their superconducting transition temperature. Below the transition temperature the samples cancelled nearly all magnetic fields inside. They detected this effect only indirectly; because the magnetic flux is conserved by a superconductor, when the interior field decreased the exterior field increased. The experiment demonstrated for the first time that superconductors were more than just perfect conductors and provided a uniquely defining property of the superconducting state. Despite having been known for over 80 years, no dynamical explanation of the Meissner effect exists within the conventional understanding of superconductivity. In a weak applied field, a superconductor "expels" nearly all magnetic flux. It does this by setting up electric currents near its surface. The magnetic field of these surface currents cancels the applied magnetic field within the bulk of the superconductor. As the field expulsion, or cancellation, does not change with time, the currents producing this effect (called persistent currents) do not decay with time. Therefore the conductivity can be thought of as infinite: a superconductor. Near the surface, within a distance called the London penetration depth, the magnetic field is not completely cancelled. Each superconducting material has its own characteristic penetration depth. Any perfect conductor will prevent any change to magnetic flux passing through its surface due to ordinary electromagnetic induction at zero resistance. The Meissner effect is distinct from this: when an ordinary conductor is cooled so that it makes the transition to a superconducting state in the presence of a constant applied magnetic field, the magnetic flux is expelled during the transition. This effect cannot be explained by infinite conductivity alone. Its explanation is more complex and was first given in the London equations by the brothers Fritz and Heinz London. It should thus be noted that the placement and subsequent levitation of a magnet above an already superconducting material does not demonstrate the Meissner effect, while an initially stationary magnet later being repelled by a superconductor as it is cooled through its critical temperature does.

APPLICATIONS OF SUPERCONDUCTORS y Magnetic-levitation is an application where superconductors perform extremely well. Transport vehicles such as trains can be made to "float" on strong superconducting magnets, virtually eliminating friction between the train and its tracks. Not only would conventional electromagnets waste much of the electrical energy as heat, they would have to be physically much larger than superconducting magnets. A landmark for the commercial use of MAGLEV technology occurred in 1990 when it gained the status of a nationally-funded project in Japan. The Minister of Transport authorized construction of the Yamanashi Maglev Test Line which opened on April 3, 1997. In December 2003, the MLX01 test vehicle (shown above) attained an incredible speed of 361 mph (581 kph).

Although the technology has now been proven, the wider use of MAGLEV vehicles has been constrained by political and environmental concerns (strong magnetic fields can create a biohazard). The world's first MAGLEV train to be adopted into commercial service, a shuttle in Birmingham, England, shut down in 1997 after operating for 11 years. A Sino-German maglev is currently operating over a 30-km course at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China. The U.S. plans to put its first (non-superconducting) Maglev train into operation on a Virginia college campus. Click this link for a website that lists other uses for MAGLEV. y An area where superconductors can perform a life-saving function is in the field of biomagnetism. Doctors need a non-invasive means of determining what's going on inside the human body. By impinging a strong superconductor-derived magnetic field into the body, hydrogen atoms that exist in the body's water and fat molecules are forced to accept energy from the magnetic field. They then release this energy at a frequency that can be detected and displayed graphically by a computer. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was actually discovered in the mid 1940's. But, the first MRI exam on a human being was not performed until July 3, 1977. And, it took almost five hours to produce one image! Today's faster computers process the data in much less time.

The Korean Superconductivity Group within KRISS has carried biomagnetic technology a step further with the development of a double-relaxation oscillation SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) for use in Magnetoencephalography. SQUID's are capable of sensing a change in a magnetic field over a billion times weaker than the force that moves the needle on a compass (compass: 5e-5T, SQUID: e-14T.). With this technology, the body can be probed to certain depths without the need for the strong magnetic fields associated with MRI's.