Ceramics As A Super Conductor

The first high temperature superconductor was discovered in 1986 by ibm researchers bednorz and müller 3 6 who were awarded the nobel prize in physics in 1987 for their important break through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials.

Ceramics as a super conductor. Ceramics are amongst the most electrically insulating materials known. However discoveries in the late 20th century have also shown some ceramics to be the most electrically conducting. The superconductor we will be experimenting with is an yttrium y barium ba and copper cu composition. The most significant new materials are bismuth based and thallium based.

The best ceramic conductors are the so called high tc superconductors materials that lose their resistance at much higher critical temperatures than their metal alloy counterparts. The high t c field is continually expanding. Most high tc ceramics are layered structures with two dimensional copper oxygen sheets along which superconduction takes place. Texturing is essential to achieve high current densities in polycrystalline wires or the thick films of ceramic superconductors.

This superconductor has a critical transition temperature around 90k well above liquid nitrogen s 77k temperature. In addition to the well known physical properties of ceramic materials hardness compressive strength brittleness there is the property of electric resistivity. Many ceramic superconductors physically behave as superconductors of the second type. Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7.

Yba 2 cu 3 o 7 x was the first ceramic superconductor discovered with t c greater than liquid nitrogen temperature.