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Tag Archives: BCS theory
Rescuing superconductivity
From a paper in Nature Reviews Physics, December 19, 2024: One of the forefront fields of modern superconductivity research is that on hydrides at high pressures. Over the past few years, this research has attracted considerable publicity, of which a … Continue reading
65 years of the BCS theory
Thanks to an arithmetic mistake, I thought 2022 was the 75th anniversary of the invention (or discovery?) of the BCS theory of superconductivity. It’s really the 65th anniversary, but since I’d worked myself up to write about it, I’m going … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged BCS theory, Bi-2212, conventional superconductors, Cooper pairs, superconductivity
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At last, physicists report finding the ‘fourth sign’ of superconductivity
Using an advanced investigative technique, researchers at Stanford University have found that cuprate superconductors – which become superconducting at higher temperatures than their better-known conventional counterparts – transition into this exotic state in a different way. The discovery provides new insights into … Continue reading
Physicists observe long-expected helium superfluid phase
Physicists have reported that they have finally observed helium 3 existing in a long-predicted type of superfluid, called the ß phase. This is an important discovery, if it’s borne out, for reasons that partly have to do with its isotope, helium 4. … Continue reading
A tale of vortices, skyrmions, paths and shapes
There are many types of superconductors. Some of them can be explained by an early theory of superconductivity called Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory. In these materials, vibrations in the atomic lattice force the electrons in the material to overcome their mutual … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged anyons, BCS theory, chiral magnets, condensed matter physics, David Thouless, Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, materials science, Nanyang Technical University, orbital angular momentum, p-wave superconductor, path dependency, phase transition, quantum computers, quasiparticles, Rashba-Edelstein effect, s-wave superconductor, skyrmion-vortex coupling, skyrmions, solid state physics, superconductors, supercurrent, topological excitations, topology, Vijay Shenoy
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The awesome limits of superconductors
On June 24, a press release from CERN said that scientists and engineers working on upgrading the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had “built and operated … the most powerful electrical transmission line … to date”. The transmission line consisted of … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Abrikosov vortex lattice, Abrikosov vortices, BCS theory, Bose-Einstein condensate, CERN, Cooper pairs, copper, electrical conductivity, electrical resistivity, electrons, flux-flow resistance, Joule heating, Large Hadron Collider, Lisa Randall, magnesium diboride, magnetic flux, Meissner effect, niobium, Pauli's exclusion principle, Praveen Chaddah, protons, silver, superconductors, superfluid helium, titanium, type I superconductors, type II superconductors, vortex pinning
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The science in Netflix’s ‘Spectral’
It’s fun to think about the implications of a film’s antagonists being modelled after a phenomenon I’ve often read/written about but never thought about that way. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Einstein, BCS theory, Bose-Einstein condensate, ceramics, Cooper pair, DARPA, electromagnetic radiation, M1 Abrams tank, Netflix, Quantum mechanics, refractive index, SN Bose, Spectral, superconductivity, superfluidity, UV light, warcraft, wavefunction
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Yoichiro Nambu, the silent revolutionary of particle physics, is dead
The Wire July 18, 2015 Particle physics is an obscure subject for most people but everyone sat up and took notice when the Large Hadron Collider discovered the particle named after Peter Higgs in 2012. The Higgs boson propelled his name to the … Continue reading
Superconductivity: From Feshbach to Fermi
(This post is continued from this one.) After a bit of searching on Wikipedia, I found that the fundamental philosophical underpinnings of superconductivity were to be found in a statistical concept called the Feshbach resonance. If I had to teach … Continue reading