Related papers: Superconductivity - the first 100 years
On the occasion of centenary of superconductivity discovery I recall some facts from the first period and attempts to understand the phenomenon. It turns out that most famous physicists of the first half of XX century have tried to solve…
Almost half a century passed between the discovery of superconductivity by Kamerlingh Onnes and the theoretical explanation of the phenomenon by Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer. During the intervening years the brightest minds in theoretical…
Superconducting state is achieved through quantum condensation of Cooper pairs which are new types of charge carriers other than single electrons in normal metals. The theory established by Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) in 1957 can…
The BCS theory injected two powerful ideas into the collective consciousness of theoretical physics: pairing and spontaneous symmetry breaking. In the 50 years since the seminal work of Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer, those ideas have…
The first successful theory of superconductivity was the one proposed by Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer in 1957. This breakthrough fostered a remarkable growth of the field that propitiated progress and questionings, generating alternative…
Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by Kamerlingh Onnes and Holst in mercury at the temperature of liquid helium (4.2 K). It took almost 50 years until in 1957 a microscopic theory of superconductivity, the so-called BCS theory, was…
For half a century after the discovery of superconductivity, materials exploration for better superconductors proceeded without knowledge of the underlying mechanism. The 1957 BCS theory cleared that up: the superconducting state occurs due…
When first proposed in 1957, the BCS theory for superconductivity, which explained the quasi-totality of its thermodynamic and transport properties, was greeted with great circumspection, before it became the play ground of particle…
During the past few decades, several new classes of superconductors have been discovered. Most of these do not appear to be related to traditional superconductors. As a consequence, it is felt by many that for these materials,…
New developments in superconductivity, particularly through unexpected and often astonishing forms of superconducting materials, continue to excite the community and stimulate theory. It is now becoming clear that there are two distinct…
Superconductivity is a remarkably widespread phenomenon observed in most metals cooled down to very low temperatures. The ubiquity of such conventional superconductors, and the wide range of associated critical temperatures, is readily…
We give a brief review of superconductivity at ambient pressure in elements, alloys, and simple three-dimensional compounds. Historically these were the first superconducting materials studied, and based on the experimental knowledge gained…
The essay is an attempt to re-create the wonderful scientific atmosphere that emerged after the basic BCS ideas first arrived in Russia in 1957. It summarizes the most significant contributions to the microscopic theory of superconductivity…
The time-tested BCS theory of superconductivity is generally accepted to be the correct theory of conventional superconductivity by physicists and, by extension, by the world at large. In a different realm of human activity, until very…
This course has a dual purpose. First we review the successes of the weak-coupling BCS theory in describing new classes of superconductors discovered since 1979. They include the heavy-fermion superconductors, high-Tc cuprate…
As the most successful microscopic superconductivity theory, Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer(BCS) theory has a very peculiar prediction: at zero temperature, only a fraction of electrons within an energy shell form Cooper pair and condense, but…
From the days when superconductivity was discovered its science was entangled by the unresolved problem of the relationship between superconductive state, its crystal structure and its phase transitions. The problem was exacerbated by the…
Superconductivity is a phenomenon where electrical current flows without friction. The current standard theory for it is the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) theory, which explains it as due to the energy gap formation by the…
Superconductivity had been one of the most enigmatic phenomena in condensed matter physics, puzzling the best theorists for 45 years, since the original discovery by Kamerlingh-Onnes in 1911 till the final solution by Bardeen, Cooper and…
Superconductivity has continued to be a fascinating phenomenon ever since its discovery in 1911. The magnitude of the transition temperature, Tc, provides valuable insight into the underlying physics. Here we provide select examples of the…