Ceramics As A Super Conductor

Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7.

Ceramics as a super conductor.

The discovery of high temperature above the temperature of liquid nitrogen ceramic superconductors has changed superconductivity from an interesting curiosity to a useable technology with particular applications in the medical field as a superconducting magnet in mri scanners. 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. In addition to the well known physical properties of ceramic materials hardness compressive strength brittleness there is the property of electric resistivity. The ceramic materials used to make superconductors are a class of materials called perovskites.

However discoveries in the late 20th century have also shown some ceramics to be the most electrically conducting. 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. 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. 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. Many ceramic superconductors physically behave as superconductors of the second type. The high t c field is continually expanding.

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