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Also in 1950, Emanuel Maxwell and, almost simultaneously, C.A. Reynolds et al. found that the critical temperature of a superconductor depends on the isotopic mass of the constituent element. This important discovery pointed to the electron-phonon interaction as the microscopic mechanism responsible for superconductivity.
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 the condensation of Cooper pairs. These have some bosonic properties, and bosons, at sufficiently low temperature, can form a large Bose–Einstein condensate.
Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) is a family of crystalline chemical compounds that display high-temperature superconductivity; it includes the first material ever discovered to become superconducting above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen [77 K (−196.2 °C; −321.1 °F)] at about 93 K (−180.2 °C; −292.3 °F).
A superconductor can be Type I, meaning it has a single critical field, above which all superconductivity is lost and below which the magnetic field is completely expelled from the superconductor; or Type II, meaning it has two critical fields, between which it allows partial penetration of the magnetic field through isolated points. [32]
Explore the shocking discovery in high-temperature superconductors that may initiate a new era of power.
A piece of cuprate of bismuth and strontium: this piece is a cube with an edge of nearly 1 mm. Bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (BSCCO, pronounced bisko), is a type of cuprate superconductor having the generalized chemical formula Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca n−1 Cu n O 2n+4+x, with n = 2 being the most commonly studied compound (though n = 1 and n = 3 have also received significant attention).
Breakthrough would mark ‘holy grails of modern physics, unlocking major new developments in energy, transportation, healthcare, and communications’ – but it is a long way from being proven
Furthermore, high-temperature superconductors do not form large, continuous superconducting domains, rather clusters of microdomains within which superconductivity occurs. They are therefore unsuitable for applications requiring actual superconductive currents, such as magnets for magnetic resonance spectrometers. [ 32 ]