J.D.

TYTLER SCHOOL

PHYSICS PROJECT

SUPERCONDUCTORS
Made by: Vedant Pandey
Class: XII-C
(Batch: 2019-2020)

Under the Supervision and Guidance of

Dr. RP Singh
(Department of Physics)
 CERTIFICATION

 This is to certify that Vedant Pandey of class XII-C of

J.D. Tytler School has followed by the rules and
prepared the present Dissertation of the Topic:

“Superconductors”

 This is being done for fulfillment of the required

senior secondary certificate.

Supervision: Director:
Dr. RP Singh Mrs. Jennifer Tytler
(Head of Dept. of physics)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

 I take the opportunity to express a deep sense of

gratitude and sincere regards towards my physics
teacher Dr. RP Singh for his active guidance and valuable
suggestions which helped me to bring forth this project.

 I thank our Director and Mr. Suresh Katyal to provide us

the permission, equipment and support to complete the
project successfully.

 I am thankful to our Lab Assistant Mr. Azmul for his

valuable support and aid throughout the project.

Vedant Pandey
XII-C (2019-2020)
 INDEX
[Link] TOPIC Page
No.
1. Certification 2
2. Acknowledgement 3
3. Title 5
4. Superconductivity 6
5. Classical Elemental 7
Superconductors
6. Effect of Trapped Magnetic flux 8
7. Phenomenon of 9-10
superconductivity: Its discovery
and evolution
8. Era of High-Temperature 11-13
Superconductivity
9. The Meissner effect 14
10. Type I and II superconductors 15-16
11. Room Temperature 17-18
Superconductivity
12. Nobel Prizes for 19
superconductivity
13. Applications of 20-21
superconductors
14. Bibliography 22
SUPERCONDUCTORS
 SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
The property of complete disappearance of electrical
resistance in solids when they are cooled below a
characteristic temperature is called superconductivity. This
temperature is called transition temperature or critical
temperature.

P[
Superconductive state of mercury (Tc = 4.15 K) was discovered
by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911,
several years after the discovery of liquid helium.
 Classical Elemental Superconductors

Element Transition Temperature, K

Zinc 0.88
Aluminium 1.20
Indium 3.41
Tin 3.72
Mercury 4.15
Lead 7.19

 Until 1983 record Tc=23.3 K was that of Nb3Ge alloy.

 Effect of Trapped Magnetic Flux

Consider a ring made out of superconductive Material.

Perform the following thought experiment:
1. At T>Tc the material is normal state. When the
external magnetic field is turned on, it penetrates
through the ring.
Bext.

T>Tc

2. Reduce the Temperature so that T<Tc.

3. Remove the external magnetic field.
4. You discover that the magnetic field that was penetrating
through the opening of the ring magnetic field remains there.
The magnetic flux remains trapped in the ring opening.
 Phenomenon of superconductivity:
Its discovery and evolution

The phenomenon of superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by the

Dutch physicist H. Kamerlingh Onnes and his assistant Gilles Holst in
Leiden. They found that dc resistivity of mercury suddenly drops to
zero below 4.2 K, as shown in Fig. 1.1. Gilles Holst actually made this
measurement [1]. However, his name has become lost in the recesses
of history, as is often the case with junior researchers working under
a famous scientist. A year later, Kamerlingh Onnes and Holst
discovered that a sufficiently strong magnetic field restores the
resistivity in the sample as does a sufficiently strong electric current.
 In two years after the discovery of superconductivity in mercury,
lead was found to superconduct at 7.2 K. In 1930, superconductivity
was discovered in niobium, occurring at 9.2 K. This is the highest
transition temperature among all elemental metals.

In 1933, W. Meissner and R. Ochsenfeld discovered in Berlin one of

the most fundamental properties of superconductors: perfect
diamagnetism. They found that the magnetic flux is expelled from the
interior of the sample that is cooled below its critical temperature in
weak external magnetic fields (see Fig. 2.2). Thus, they found that no
applied magnetic field is allowed inside a metal when it becomes
superconducting. This phenomenon is known today as the Meissner
effect.

Dutch physicists C. J. Gorter and H. B. G. Casimir introduced in 1934

a phenomenological theory of superconductivity based on the
assumption that, in the superconducting state, there are two
components of the conducting electron “fluid”: “normal” and
“superconducting” (hence the name given this theory, the two-fluid
model). The properties of “normal” electrons are identical to those of
the electron system in a normal metal, and the “superconducting”
electrons are responsible for the anomalous properties. In the
superconducting state, these two components exist side by side as
interpenetrating liquids. The two-fluid model proved a useful concept
for analyzing, for example, the thermal and acoustic properties of
superconductors.
 Era of High-Temperature
Superconductivity

 The issue of room-temperature superconductivity was for the first

time seriously addressed in a paper written by W. A. Little in 1964
[2]. He proposed a model in which a high Tc is obtained due to a
non-phonon mediated mechanism of electron attraction, namely,
an exciton model for Cooper-pair formation in long organic
molecules. Little’s work revived the old dream of high Tc, and can
be considered as the beginning of the search for high-temperature
superconductivity.

 Many new superconductors were discovered in the 1970s and

1980s. For example, the first representatives of two new classes of
superconductors—heavy fermions and organic superconductors—
were discovered in 1979. The experimental data obtained in
organic superconductors and heavy fermions indicated that
superconductivity in these compounds was unconventional. Before
the discovery of superconductivity in copper oxides (cuprates), the
highest critical temperature 23.2 K was observed in 1973 in Nb3Ge.
This type of superconductor is called an A-15 compound.

 In 1986, trying to explain the superconductivity in heavy fermions,

K. Miyake, S. Schmitt-Rink and C. M. Varma considered the
mechanism of superconductivity based on the exchange of
antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations [4]. The calculations showed
 that the anisotropic even-parity pairings are assisted, and the odd-
parity as well as the isotropic even-parity are impeded by
antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations.

 The real history of high-Tc superconductivity began in 1986 when

Bednorz and Mu¨ller found evidence for superconductivity at ∼ 30
K in La-Ba-Cu-O ceramics [5]. This remarkable discovery has
renewed the interest in superconductive research. In 1987, the
groups at the Universities of Alabama and Houston under the
direction of M. K. Wu and P. W. Chu, respectively, jointly
announced the discovery of the 93 K superconductor Y-Ba-Cu-O.
Just a year later—early in 1988—Bi- and Tl-based superconducting
cuprates were discovered, having Tc = 110 and 125 K, respectively.
Finally, Hg-based cuprates with the highest critical temperature Tc
= 135 K were discovered in 1993 (at high pressure, Tc increases up
to 164 K). Figure 1.2 shows the superconducting critical
temperature of several cuprates as a function of the year of
discovery, as well as Tc of some metallic superconductors. All these
cuprates are hole-doped. One family of cuprates which was
discovered in 1989 is electrondoped: (Nd, Pr, Sm)-Ce-Cu-O. Their
maximum critical temperature is comparatively low, Tc,max = 24 K.

 In 1986 the scientific world was astonished by the discovery of high-

Tc superconductivity in copper oxides because oxides are very bad
conductors. The first reaction of most scientists working in the field
of superconductivity was to think that there must be a new
mechanism, since phonon-mediated superconductivity is
impossible at so high a temperature. The discovery of
superconducting cuprates was followed by research growth at a
rate unprecedented in the history of science: during 1987 the
number of scientists working in the field of superconductivity
increased, at least, by one order of magnitude. Data obtained in the
cuprates, within a year after the discovery of their ability to
superconduct, indeed showed that the characteristics of high-Tc
superconductors deviate from the predictions of the BCS theory as
do those of organic superconductors and heavy fermions. For
example, the BCS isotope effect is almost absent in optimally doped
cuprates. As a consequence, this has prompted the exploration of
non-phonon electronic coupling mechanisms. Ph. Anderson was
probably the first to suggest a theoretical model which did not
incorporate the phonon-electron interaction.
 The Meissner effect

In 1933, Walter Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld discovered a

magnetic phenomenon that showed that superconductors are not just
perfect conductors. Figure illustrates a thought experiment that
highlights this difference. Imagine that both the ideal conductor and
superconductor are above their critical temperature, Tc. That is, they
both are in a normal conducting state and have electrical resistance.
A magnetic field, Ba, is then applied. This results in the field
penetrating both materials. Both samples are then cooled so that the
ideal conductor now has zero resistance. It is found that the
superconductor expels the magnetic field from inside it, while the
ideal conductor maintains its interior field. Note that energy is needed
by the superconductor to expel the magnetic field. This energy comes
from the exothermic superconducting transition. Switching off the
field induces currents in the ideal conductor that prevent changes in
the magnetic field inside it – by Lenz’s law. However, the
superconductor returns to its initial state, i.e. no magnetic field inside
or outside it.
 Type I and II superconductors
High magnetic fields destroy superconductivity and restore the
normal conducting state. Depending on the character of this
transition, we may distinguish between type I and II superconductors.
It is found that the internal field is zero (as expected from the Meissner
effect) until a critical magnetic field, Bc, is reached where a sudden
transition to the normal state occurs. This results in the penetration
of the applied field into the interior. Superconductors that undergo
this abrupt transition to the normal state above a critical magnetic
field are known as type I superconductors. Most of the pure elements
tend to be type I superconductors.
 Type II superconductors, on the other hand, respond differently to
an applied magnetic field. An increasing field from zero results in two
critical fields, Bc1 and Bc2. At Bc1 the applied field begins to partially
penetrate the interior of the superconductor. However, the
superconductivity is maintained at this point. The superconductivity
vanishes above the second, much higher, critical field, Bc2. For applied
fields between Bc1 and Bc2, the applied field is able to partially
penetrate the superconductor, so the Meissner effect is incomplete,
allowing the superconductor to tolerate very high magnetic fields.

Type II superconductors are the most technologically useful

because the second critical field can be quite high, enabling high field
electromagnets to be made out of superconducting wire. Most
compounds shown in Figure 2 are type-II superconductors. Wires
made from say niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) have a Bc2 as high as 24.5 Tesla –
in practice it is lower. This makes them useful for applications
requiring high magnetic fields, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI) machines. The advantage of using superconducting
electromagnets is that the current only has to be applied once to the
wires, which are then formed into a closed loop and allow the current
(and field) to persist indefinitely – as long as the superconductor stays
below the critical temperature. That is, the external power supply can
be switched off. As a comparison, the strongest permanent magnets
today may be able to produce a field close to 1 Tesla. However, it is
possible to obtain up to 24.5 Tesla from a niobium–tin
superconductor.
 Room Temperature
Superconductivity
A room-temperature superconductor is a hypothetical material
that would be capable of exhibiting superconductivity at operating
temperatures above 0 °C (273.15 K). While this is not strictly "room
temperature", which would be approximately 20–25 °C, it is the
temperature at which ice forms and can be reached and easily
maintained in an everyday environment. The highest temperature
known superconducting material is highly pressurized hydrogen
sulfide, the transition temperature of which is 203 K (−70 °C), the
highest accepted superconducting critical temperature as of 2015. By
substituting a small part of sulfur with phosphorus and using even
higher pressures, it has been predicted that it may be possible to raise
the critical temperature to above 0 °C and achieve room-temperature
superconductivity. Previously the record was held by the cuprates,
which have demonstrated superconductivity at atmospheric
pressure at temperatures as high as 138 K (−135 °C), and 164 K
(−109 °C) under high pressure.
Claims of "near-room temperature" transient effects date from the
early 1950s and some suggest that in fact the breakthrough might
have been made more than once but could not be made stable enough
and/or reproducible as the relationship between isotope number and
Tc was not known at the time.
Finding a room temperature superconductor "would have
enormous technological importance and, for example, help to solve
the world’s energy problems, provide for faster computers, allow for
novel memory-storage devices, and enable ultra-sensitive sensors,
among many other possibilities."
Theoretical work by Neil Ashcroft predicted that solid metallic
hydrogen at extremely high pressure (~500 GPa) should become
superconducting at approximately room-temperature because of its
extremely high speed of sound and expected strong coupling between
the conduction electrons and the lattice vibrations (phonons).[16] This
prediction is yet to be experimentally verified, as yet the pressure to
achieve metallic hydrogen is not known but may be of the order of
500 GPa.

A team at Harvard has claimed to make metallic hydrogen and

reports a pressure of 495 GPa.[17] Though the exact critical
temperature has not yet been determined, weak signs of a Meissner
effect at 250K may have appeared in magnetometer tests.

In 1964, William A. Little proposed the possibility of high

temperature superconductivity in organic polymers.[18] This proposal
is based on the exciton-mediated electron pairing, as opposed to
phonon-mediated pairing in BCS theory.
 Nobel Prizes for
superconductivity

 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913), "for his investigations on the

properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to
the production of liquid helium".

 John Bardeen, Leon N. Cooper, and J. Robert Schrieffer (1972), "for

their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called
the BCS-theory".

 Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, and Brian D. Josephson (1973), "for their
experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in
semiconductors and superconductors, respectively," and "for his
theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through
a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally
known as the Josephson effects".

 Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Müller (1987), "for their important

break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic
materials"

 Alexei A. Abrikosov, Vitaly L. Ginzburg, and Anthony J.

Leggett (2003), "for pioneering contributions to the theory of
superconductors and superfluids".

 Michael Kosterlitz, Duncan Haldane, David J. Thouless (2016), "for

theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and
topological phases of matter".
 Applications of superconductors

 The first large scale commercial application of superconductivity

was in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This is a non-intrusive
medical imaging technique that
creates a two-dimensional picture of
say tumors and other abnormalities
within the body or brain. This
requires a person to be placed inside
a large and uniform electromagnet
with a high magnetic field. Although
normal electromagnets can be used for this purpose, because of
resistance they would dissipate a great deal of heat and have
large power requirements. Superconducting magnets on the
other hand have almost no power requirements apart from
operating the cooling.

 Superconductors can also be used to make a device known as a

superconducting quantum
interference device (SQUID). This is
in credibly sensitive to small
magnetic fields so that it can detect
the magnetic fields from the heart
(10-10 Tesla) and even the brain (10-
13 Tesla). For comparison, the
Earth’s magnetic field is about 10-4
Tesla. As a result, SQUIDs are used in non-intrusive medical
diagnostics on the brain.
 Levitating trains have been built that use powerful
electromagnets made from superconductors. The
superconducting electromagnets are mounted on the train.
Normal electromagnets, on a guideway beneath the train, repel
(or attract) the superconducting electromagnets to levitate the
train while pulling it forwards.
 Bibliography

 [Link]
 [Link]
 [Link]