Ceramics As A Super Conductor

The superconductor we will be experimenting with is an yttrium y barium ba and copper cu composition.

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. The ceramic materials used to make superconductors are a class of materials called perovskites. Many ceramic superconductors physically behave as superconductors of the second type. However discoveries in the late 20th century have also shown some ceramics to be the most electrically conducting.

Texturing is essential to achieve high current densities in polycrystalline wires or the thick films of ceramic superconductors. The most significant new materials are bismuth based and thallium based. This superconductor has a critical transition temperature around 90k well above liquid nitrogen s 77k temperature. Yba 2 cu 3 o 7 x was the first ceramic superconductor discovered with t c greater than liquid nitrogen temperature.

Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7. Conductive ceramics advanced industrial materials that owing to modifications in their structure serve as electrical conductors. Ceramics are amongst the most electrically insulating materials known. 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.

Most high tc ceramics are layered structures with two dimensional copper oxygen sheets along which superconduction takes place.