Ceramics As A Super Conductor

Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7.

Ceramics as a super conductor.

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. The high t c field is continually expanding. Many ceramic superconductors physically behave as superconductors of the second type. The superconductor we will be experimenting with is an yttrium y barium ba and copper cu composition.

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. Yba 2 cu 3 o 7 x was the first ceramic superconductor discovered with t c greater than liquid nitrogen temperature. However discoveries in the late 20th century have also shown some ceramics to be the most electrically conducting. 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.

Most high tc ceramics are layered structures with two dimensional copper oxygen sheets along which superconduction takes place. Conductive ceramics advanced industrial materials that owing to modifications in their structure serve as electrical conductors. In addition to the well known physical properties of ceramic materials hardness compressive strength brittleness there is the property of electric resistivity. This superconductor has a critical transition temperature around 90k well above liquid nitrogen s 77k temperature.

Ceramics are amongst the most electrically insulating materials known.