Superconductivity 2022

Dear Colleagues,

We present a Special Issue for the journal Metals with the title “Superconductivity 2022”. A hundred and ten years after the discovery of superconductivity in Hg, the research of superconductivity in metals and metallic alloys is currently found at the forefront of science, considering the discovery of (near) room-temperature superconductivity in La(H10)-hydrides, even if only at high pressures.

Thus, there is a lot of interesting research considering metallic materials and superconductivity, arising from breaking news such as: the high-pressure research of elements with the current record holder being Ca having a superconducting transition temperature, Tc, of 20 K or above; the finding of the enormous stability of superconductivity at high pressures (261 GPa) of the NbTi alloy with an increased Tc of up to ~20 K; many more details of hydrogen–metal systems being superconductors at ambient conditions as well as at high pressures; topological superconductivity in metallic alloys and heterostructures; the discovery of the superconducting high-entropy alloy (HEA) systems and new metallic alloys, discovered by using the old Matthias’ rules, as well as by machine learning approaches. Furthermore, methods of nanotechnology enable the stabilization of different crystal structures, only stable at high pressures, in nanostructured systems. An example of this is Ga with a much higher Tc, as reported previously, and also being a type-II superconductor. Several metallic elements have been found to show exciting high Tc values only in the thin film form, which has again generated both experimental and theoretical new investigations. Of course, it must be mentioned here that the superconducting performance of NbTi- and Nb3Sn-based superconducting cables is, nowadays, higher than ever before, due to improved flux pinning properties and the further developed production schemes, driven by the demands of the large-scale applications of superconducting magnets in particle colliders and fusion reactors.

Therefore, the research on metallic superconductors is far from finished as was feared upon the discovery of the high Tc superconductors. Therefore, the intention of this Special Issue is to assemble a complete collection of research works on the current “hot” topics, demonstrating the advances this field has seen in recent years.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Superconductivity in metal–hydride systems;
• Superconductivity in metallic nanostructures;
• Superconducting HEA alloys: new materials, investigations of properties and possible applications;
• New metallic superconducting alloys and their properties;
• Modelling of superconducting properties of metallic elements and alloys, including the search for new compounds;
• Properties of metallic hydrogen;
• Topological superconductivity in metallic systems;
• Interaction of superconductivity and magnetism in metallic systems and magnetic flux pinning;
• Fabrication and properties of superconducting cables and cable materials.

We welcome full papers, communications and review articles emphasizing the broad scope of the topic.

Prof. Dr. Michael R. Koblischka
Prof. Dr. Anjela Koblischka-Veneva
Guest Editors

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• superconducting elements
• superconducting alloys
• metal–hydrogen systems
• HEA
• metallic hydrogen
• superconductivity in metallic nanostructures
• superconducting transition temperature
• flux pinning
• cables
• magnets