100 Years Of Superconductivity

Even a hundred years after its discovery, superconductivity continues to bring us new surprises, from superconducting magnets used in MRI to quantum detectors in electronics. 100 Years of Superconductivity presents a comprehensive collection of topics on nearly all the subdisciplines of superconductivity. Tracing the historical developments in superconductivity, the book includes contributions from many pioneers who are responsible for important steps forward in the field. The text first discusses interesting stories of the discovery and gradual progress of theory and experimentation. Emphasizing key developments in the early 1950s and 1960s, the book looks at how superconductivity started to permeate society and how most of today’s applications are based on the innovations of those years. It also explores the genuine revolution that occurred with the discovery of high temperature superconductors, leading to emerging applications in power storage and fusion reactors. Superconductivity has become a vast field and this full-color book shows how far it has come in the past 100 years. Along with reviewing significant research and experiments, leading scientists share their insight and experiences working in this exciting and evolving area.

This book is about the work of 10 great scientists; who they were and are, their personal background and how they achieved their outstanding results and took their prominent place in science history. We follow one of physics and science history's most enigmatic phenomena, superconductivity, through 100 years, from its discovery in 1911 to the present, not as a history book in the usual sense, but through close ups of the leading characters and their role in that story, the Nobel laureates, who were still among us in the years 2001-2004 when the main round of interviews was carried out. Since then two of them already passed away. For each one of the 10 laureates, the author tells their story by direct quotation from interviews in their own words. Each chapter treats one laureate. The author first gives a brief account of the laureates' scientific background and main contribution. Then each laureate tells his own story in his own words. This book is unique in its approach to science history.

Rudolf P. Huebener presents the field of superconductivity research in a clear and compact way. He vividly describes how this area has developed in many directions since the discovery of superconductivity more than 100 years ago. This concerns materials, experiments on the physical principles, theoretical understanding and technical applications. Among other things, the essential deals with the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect, magnetic flux quantization, the Josephson effect, the BCS theory and high-temperature superconductivity. This Springer essential is a translation of the original German 1st edition essentials, Geschichte und Theorie der Supraleiter by Rudolf P. Huebener, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2017. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

This wide-ranging presentation of applied superconductivity, from fundamentals and materials right up to the details of many applications, is an essential reference for physicists and engineers in academic research as well as in industry. Readers looking for a comprehensive overview on basic effects related to superconductivity and superconducting materials will expand their knowledge and understanding of both low and high Tc superconductors with respect to their application. Technology, preparation and characterization are covered for bulk, single crystals, thins fi lms as well as electronic devices, wires and tapes. The main benefit of this work lies in its broad coverage of significant applications in magnets, power engineering, electronics, sensors and quantum metrology. The reader will find information on superconducting magnets for diverse applications like particle physics, fusion research, medicine, and biomagnetism as well as materials processing. SQUIDs and their usage in medicine or geophysics are thoroughly covered, as are superconducting radiation and particle detectors, aspects on superconductor digital electronics, leading readers to quantum computing and new devices.

While the macroscopic phenomenon of superconductivity is well known and in practical use worldwide, the current theoretical paradigm for superconductivity suffers from a number of limitations. For example, there is no currently accepted theoretical explanation for the pattern of superconductor critical temperatures in the periodic table. Historical developments in condensed matter were strongly focused on the similarities of all metals and the electron gas model, with little attention paid to their real differences. Accessible by a wide audience, Superconductivity Revisited explores the work of those who investigated the differences, and laid the foundation for all current and future work. Topics Include Pattern of Elemental Superconductors in the Periodic Table High-Temperature Superconductors Electron Spin in Superconductors Heat Capacity and Magnetic Susceptibility in Superconductors Quantum Foundations of Molecular Electricity and Magnetism Metals and Insulators Electron Transport in Metals Magnetoresistance Quantum Hall Effect Type I and Type II Superconductivity Superconductivity Revisited starts from the foundations and shows that the current theory of the subject cannot explain the pattern of superconductors in the periodic table, as the theory depends on a theory of resistivity not congruent with the Sommerfeld equation. Partial wave scattering is introduced as a route to deal with these issues. The book develops a theory of superconductivity that includes the periodic table. The new, coherent, understandable theory of superconductivity is directly based on thermodynamics, scattering theory, and molecular quantum mechanics.

This book presents the basics of superconductivity and applications of superconducting magnets. It explains the phenomenon of superconductivity, describes theories of superconductivity, and discusses type II and high-temperature cuprate superconductors. The main focus of the book is the application of superconducting magnets in accelerators, fusion reactors and other advanced applications such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), high-gradient magnetic separation (HGMS), and superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES). This new and significantly extended second edition covers the state of the art in the development of novel superconductors for advanced magnet applications, as well as the production of practical superconducting wires, tapes, and ultra high current cables used for high-field magnets. It includes two new chapters each devoted to MgB2 and Fe-based superconductors, and discusses the recently developed and world record-setting 45.5-Tesla magnetic field generated by a combination of conventional and high-temperature cuprate superconducting magnets. In addition, it discusses the status and outlook of all current and future nuclear fusion reactors worldwide. The chapter on accelerators includes the ongoing efforts to build high luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the high-energy 28 TeV LHC (HE-LHC), the future circular collider (FCC) at CERN, and the just launched electro-ion collider (EIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The book is based on the long-standing experience of the author in studying superconducting materials, building magnets and delivering numerous lectures to research scholars and students. The book provides comprehensive and fundamental knowledge in the field of applied superconductivity, greatly benefiting researchers and graduate students wishing to learn more about the various aspects of superconductivity and advanced magnet applications.

This is the second of three volumes of the extensively revised and updated second edition of the Handbook of Superconductivity. The past twenty years have seen rapid progress in superconducting materials, which exhibit one of the most remarkable physical states of matter ever to be discovered. Superconductivity brings quantum mechanics to the scale of the everyday world where a single, coherent quantum state may extend over a distance of metres, or even kilometres, depending on the size of a coil or length of superconducting wire. Viable applications of superconductors rely fundamentally on an understanding of this intriguing phenomena and the availability of a range of materials with bespoke properties to meet practical needs. While the first volume covers the fundamentals of superconductivity and the various classes of superconducting materials, Volume 2 covers processing of the desired superconducting materials into desired forms: bulks, films, wires and junction-based devices. The volume closes with articles on the refrigeration methods needed to put the materials into the superconducting state. Key Features: Covers the depth and breadth of the field Includes contributions from leading academics and industry professionals across the world Provides hands-on guidance to the manufacturing and processing technologies A comprehensive reference, the handbook is suitable for both graduate students and practitioners in experimental physics, materials science, and multiple engineering disciplines, including electronic and electrical, chemical, mechanical, metallurgy and others.

This open access book is written by world-recognized experts in the fields of applied superconductivity and superconducting accelerator magnet technologies. It provides a contemporary review and assessment of the experience in research and development of high-field accelerator dipole magnets based on Nb3Sn superconductor over the past five decades. The reader attains clear insight into the development and the main properties of Nb3Sn composite superconducting wires and Rutherford cables, and details of accelerator dipole designs, technologies and performance. Special attention is given to innovative features of the developed Nb3Sn magnets. The book concludes with a discussion of accelerator magnet needs for future circular colliders.