Ceramics As A Super Conductor

Many ceramic superconductors physically behave as superconductors of the second type.

Ceramics as a super conductor.

In addition to the well known physical properties of ceramic materials hardness compressive strength brittleness there is the property of electric resistivity. Yba 2 cu 3 o 7 x was the first ceramic superconductor discovered with t c greater than liquid nitrogen temperature. The high t c field is continually expanding. Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7.

However discoveries in the late 20th century have also shown some ceramics to be the most electrically conducting. The most significant new materials are bismuth based and thallium based. Conductive ceramics advanced industrial materials that owing to modifications in their structure serve as electrical conductors. The ceramic materials used to make superconductors are a class of materials called perovskites.

Most high tc ceramics are layered structures with two dimensional copper oxygen sheets along which superconduction takes place. Texturing is essential to achieve high current densities in polycrystalline wires or the thick films of ceramic superconductors. 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. The superconductor we will be experimenting with is an yttrium y barium ba and copper cu composition.

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.