The new superconductors: Prospects for applications
- Argonne National Laboratory, IL (USA)
Two years ago several groups around the world, excited by the discovery by K. Alex Mueller and J. Georg Bednorz of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory of a superconducting ceramic oxide, developed an yttrium-barium-copper oxide that superconducted at 90 K. Since then other investigators have found two separate families of copper oxides, one incorporating bismuth and the other thallium, that superconduct at between 110 and 120 K. These high-temperature superconductors could be cooled to 77 degrees K with liquid nitrogen, which is cheap and abundant. This immediately suggested that certain applications of superconductivity long considered not to be economic or practical might be feasible. Yet many of the envisioned applications-generators and motors, energy storage, magnetically levitating trains-raise the same issues to which Onnes referred. It is not yet known whether the new materials can be made easily workable-strong and flexible enough to fashion into wire and other useful forms. Nor is it known whether they can be made to carry large currents and operate in intense magnetic fields. Whether the new discoveries will prove fruitful will depend on the progress made toward achieving design requirements for known applications and on identifying new applications as yet unforeseen. Indeed, such new applications may well have the greater impact. No one foresaw today's most important commercial use of superconductivity, magnetic-resonance imaging for medical diagnosis, in the 1960's, when niobium-3-tin and niobium-titanium were found to remain superconducting while carrying high currents in the presence of sizable magnetic fields. Leaving aside the unforeseen, an informed view of the economic and technical advantages of the new superconductors can help guide attempts to achieve the applications now being envisioned.
- OSTI ID:
- 6533992
- Journal Information:
- Scientific American; (USA), Journal Name: Scientific American; (USA) Vol. 260:2; ISSN SCAMA; ISSN 0036-8733
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
BCS THEORY
CERAMICS
CHALCOGENIDES
COMPUTERS
COOPER PAIRS
COPPER COMPOUNDS
COPPER OXIDES
DESIGN
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRIC GENERATORS
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELECTROMAGNETS
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS
ENERGY SYSTEMS
EQUIPMENT
FABRICATION
FLUXMETERS
JOSEPHSON JUNCTIONS
JUNCTIONS
LEVITATED TRAINS
MAGNETS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MICROWAVE EQUIPMENT
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PERFORMANCE
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
POWER TRANSMISSION LINES
SQUID DEVICES
SUPERCONDUCTING DEVICES
SUPERCONDUCTING JUNCTIONS
SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNETS
SUPERCONDUCTING WIRES
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
SUPERCONDUCTORS
TEXTURE
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
TRAINS
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
TRANSITION TEMPERATURE
USES
VEHICLES
WIRES