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Superconductivity
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What is superconductivity?

Superconductivityis a phenomenon of exact zeroelectrical resistanceand expulsion ofmagnetic fieldsoccurring in certainmaterialswhencooled below a characteristic critical temperature.

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Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum mechanical phenomenon. It is characterized by the Meissner effect. complete expulsion of magnetic field lines from the interior of the superconductor as it transitions into the superconducting state.

The

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Meissner effect

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BCS Theory

As we now understand it, the reason for superconductivity has to do with fermions and bosons.Fermionsare particles that cannot occupy the same state. For example, when you have a lot of electrons in a single atom, each electron must occupy a successively higher energy state, from the core electrons to the outer electrons.Bosons, on the other hand, are allowed to crowd a single state. If electrons were bosons, then they would all collapse to the smallest orbital around an atom. Pairing up electrons requires that there be some attractive force between the electrons. This is hard to imagine, because electrons have like charges, and normally repel each other. But remember that we don't just have negatively charged electrons, but positively charged atomic nuclei. If we have an electron, it pulls nearby atomic nuclei towards it, creating an excess positive charge. This positive charge weakly attracts a second electron. The weak attractive force between electrons allows them to pair up.

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It allows for superconductivity up to about 30 K above absolute zero (that's about -240 Celsius, or -400 Fahrenheit). Above this temperature, the positively charged nuclei fluctuate too much from thermal energy for the mechanism to work properly. At the present day all the superconductors have to be refrigerated by liquid nitrogen.

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Types of superconductors
There

are two types of superconductors: They behave as superconductors only up to a certain external magnetic field strength. As the meissner effect requires some amount of energy to produce a field to repel the external magnetic field.

Type-1:

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Type-2:

The superconductors which show the phenomenon at high temperatures are of this type. They remain superconductors even at high temperatures. When the external magnetic field strength is strong enough, it penetrates the superconductors in thin tubes. These thin tubes act as non-superconductors. And the bundle as a whole acts as a superconductor.

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Uses of superconductors
Maglev

trains. Resonance Imaging

Magnetic Large

Hadron Collider generators

Electric Power

transmission via superconducting cables.

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Thank you!