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Metallic Superconductors - The Workhorses of Superconductivity

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A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 August 2020) | Viewed by 14184

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Michael R. Koblischka

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Guest Editor

Superconducting Materials Laboratory, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Toyosu, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-8548, Japan
Interests: superconducting and magnetic materials; bulk superconductors and levitation; magneto-optic imaging (Kerr, Faraday); magnetic force microscopy; magnetic recording; force microscopy; magnetic properties; microstructures; electron microscopy; nanostructuring; alternative preparation routes of superconducting and magnetic materials (nanowires, foams, 3D printing)
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Superconductivity was first discovered in metal superconductors, and the first real applications brought up by the first intermetallic alloys still play an important role until now (NbTi, Nb₃Sn). Moreover, the development of MgB₂ which reaches the highest superconducting transition temperature of approx. 38 K (without external pressure) enables new research possibilities for applications at ~20 K provided by cryo-cooling systems. MgB₂ can replace high-Tc superconductor-based materials due to the fact that a relatively cheap manufacturing process is possible to be applied, and there are no (expensive) rare-earth materials involved. However, MgB₂ shares many features with previous materials like Nb₃Sn. The ever present quest for higher critical currents requires intense research concerning the flux pinning sites created artificially (mechanical deformation or chemical doping), by irradiation and newly developed processing techniques.

Another interesting aspect of metallic superconductors is that they still provide new insights to superconductivity, both theoretically and experimentally. Among such observations is the paramagnetic Meissner effect (PME) observed firstly in Nb disks, and since then also in other metallic systems. Further, two-dimensional systems based on metallic materials like NbSe₂, Bi₂Te₃, etc. offer a simple experimental access to these systems. Therefore, the research on metallic superconductors still offers many possibilities and new developments.

Prof. Dr. Michael Koblischka
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Artificial pinning centers (APC)
Critical currents, flux pinning
Flux jumps
Rare-earth free superconductors
Trapped field magnets
Sparc plasma sintering
CVD growth
2D materials
Topological superconductors
Paramagnetic Meissner effect
Magnetic imaging of flux structures

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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26 pages, 1121 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Relation between Crystal Structure and Transition Temperature of Superconducting Metals and Alloys

by Michael Rudolf Koblischka, Susanne Roth, Anjela Koblischka-Veneva, Thomas Karwoth, Alex Wiederhold, Xian Lin Zeng, Stefanos Fasoulas and Masato Murakami

Metals 2020, 10(2), 158; https://doi.org/10.3390/met10020158 - 21 Jan 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5337

Abstract

Using the Roeser–Huber equation, which was originally developed for high temperature superconductors (HTSc) (H. Roeser et al., Acta Astronautica 62 (2008) 733), we present a calculation of the superconducting transition temperatures,

T_{c}

, of some elements with fcc unit cells (Pb, Al), [...] Read more.

T_{c}

, of some elements with fcc unit cells (Pb, Al), some elements with bcc unit cells (Nb, V), Sn with a tetragonal unit cell and several simple metallic alloys (NbN, NbTi, the A15 compounds and MgB

_{2}

). All calculations used only the crystallographic information and available data of the electronic configuration of the constituents. The model itself is based on viewing superconductivity as a resonance effect, and the superconducting charge carriers moving through the crystal interact with a typical crystal distance, x. It is found that all calculated

T_{c}

-data fall within a narrow error margin on a straight line when plotting

{(2 x)}^{2}

vs.

1 / T_{c}

like in the case for HTSc. Furthermore, we discuss the problems when obtaining data for

T_{c}

from the literature or from experiments, which are needed for comparison with the calculated data. The

T_{c}

-data presented here agree reasonably well with the literature data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metallic Superconductors - The Workhorses of Superconductivity)

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Review

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17 pages, 11080 KiB

Open AccessReview

Magnetic Recording of Superconducting States

by Gorky Shaw, Sylvain Blanco Alvarez, Jérémy Brisbois, Loïc Burger, Lincoln B. L. G. Pinheiro, Roman B. G. Kramer, Maycon Motta, Karl Fleury-Frenette, Wilson Aires Ortiz, Benoît Vanderheyden and Alejandro V. Silhanek

Metals 2019, 9(10), 1022; https://doi.org/10.3390/met9101022 - 20 Sep 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4328

Abstract

Local polarization of magnetic materials has become a well-known and widely used method for storing binary information. Numerous applications in our daily life such as credit cards, computer hard drives, and the popular magnetic drawing board toy, rely on this principle. In this work, we review the recent advances on the magnetic recording of inhomogeneous magnetic landscapes produced by superconducting films. We summarize the current compelling experimental evidence showing that magnetic recording can be applied for imprinting in a soft magnetic layer the flux trajectory taking place in a superconducting layer at cryogenic temperatures. This approach enables the ex-situ observation at room temperature of the imprinted magnetic flux landscape obtained below the critical temperature of the superconducting state. The undeniable appeal of the proposed technique lies in its simplicity and the potential to improve the spatial resolution, possibly down to the scale of a few vortices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metallic Superconductors - The Workhorses of Superconductivity)

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Graphical abstract

9 pages, 619 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

The Path to Type-II Superconductivity

by Rudolf P. Huebener

Metals 2019, 9(6), 682; https://doi.org/10.3390/met9060682 - 14 Jun 2019

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3579

Abstract

Following the discovery of superconductivity by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911, research concentrated on the electric conductivity of the materials investigated. Then, it was Max von Laue who in the early 1930s turned his attention to the magnetic properties of superconductors, such as their demagnetizing effects in a weak magnetic field. As a consultant at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin, von Laue was in close contact with Walther Meissner at the Reichsanstalt. In 1933, Meisner together with Robert Ochsenfeld discovered the perfect diamagnetism of superconductors (Meissner–Ochsenfeld effect). This was a turning point, indicating that superconductivity represents a thermodynamic equilibrium state and leading to the London theory and the Ginzburg–Landau theory. In the early 1950s in Moscow, Nikolay Zavaritzkii carried out experiments on superconducting thin films. In the theoretical analysis of his experiments, he collaborated with Alexei A. Abrikosov and for the first time they considered the possibility that the coherence length

ξ

can be smaller than the magnetic penetration depth

λ_{m}

. They called these materials the “second group”. Subsequently, Abrikosov discovered the famous Abrikosov vortex lattice and the superconducting mixed state. The important new field of type-II superconductivity was born. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metallic Superconductors - The Workhorses of Superconductivity)

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