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.

Most high tc ceramics are layered structures with two dimensional copper oxygen sheets along which superconduction takes place. 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. Ceramics are amongst the most electrically insulating materials known. The high t c field is continually expanding.

Texturing is essential to achieve high current densities in polycrystalline wires or the thick films of ceramic superconductors. Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7. Yba 2 cu 3 o 7 x was the first ceramic superconductor discovered with t c greater than liquid nitrogen temperature. 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.

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. Conductive ceramics advanced industrial materials that owing to modifications in their structure serve as electrical conductors. 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.

In addition to the well known physical properties of ceramic materials hardness compressive strength brittleness there is the property of electric resistivity.