Superconductivity

Paper Summary:

While the debate over fossil fuels and global warming continues, scientists are continuing their research into more efficient methods of providing a wide variety of applications, some of which are still being discovered. This paper provides a review and discussion concerning the current status of superconductivity, its existing applications and trends, and trends for the future. This paper includes two relevant graphics.

From the Paper:

"Superconductivity consists of the complete disappearance of electrical resistance in various solids when they are cooled below a characteristic temperature. This temperature is called the transition temperature and it varies for different materials but it is generally cited at being below 20 K (-253 C). The phenomenon of superconductivity was first discovered in mercury by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1911. However, similar behavior has been identified in approximately 25 other chemical elements (including lead and tin) and in thousands of alloys and chemical compounds. Oher materials that have been studied to within fractions of a degree of absolute zero have consistently demonstrated normal resistance to the flow of electric currents. The use of superconductors in magnets is constrained by the fact that strong magnetic fields above a certain critical value, depending upon the material, cause a superconductor to revert to its normal, or nonsuperconducting, state, even though the material is kept well below the transition temperature (Superconductivity, 2003)."

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