Superconductivity%20Narratives%20The%20Players:%20%20The%20Applications:%20%20And%20the%20Future:

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Superconductivity NarrativesThe Players The
Applications And the Future
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Graduate Students, Nobel and Ig Nobel prizes
Subtitle The Human side of Table Top Physics
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Superfluidity and Superconductivity Associated
with at Least Nine Nobel PrizesAnd Still
counting
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Nobel Laureates
L. Landau and Phil Anderson
And Possible Laureates.
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Kammerlingh Onnesdiscovered superconductivity
1911
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Failed Theories of Superconductivity
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Bardeen Cooper Schriefferdiscovered theory of
superconductivity 1957
Electrons pair and do the Cooper pair dance
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Brian Josephson DiscoveredQuantum Interference
in Superconductors (Josephson Effect) 1964
Currently Runs Mind-Matter Unification Project
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Osheroff, with Richardson and Lee discovered
superfluid helium-3 in 1973
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Bednorz and MullerDiscovered High Temperature
Superconductors 1986
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The Discovery of Higher Tc Superconductors and
The Paul Chu Green Superconductor Saga
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The Woodstock American Physical Society Meeting
1987
The Human side of Physicists --all night session
on High Tc superconductivity
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Transition temperature vs time
Key Discovery Superconducting transition
temperatures above liquid nitrogen boiling temp
cheap coolant available
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Highest Transition Temperature -189 F !

High-Temperature Superconductors (up to 150K)
Kelvin (K)
Centigrade (oC)
Fahrenheit (oF)
Conventional Superconductors (up to -405 F)
Boiling Water 212 100
373
Ice 32 0 273
Liquid nitrogen -290
-196 77
Absolute Zero -460
-273 0
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WHAT IS SUPERCONDUCTIVITY??
For superconducting materials, the resistivity
vanishes at some low temperature.
Thus, superconductors can carry large amounts
of current with no loss of energy.
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What Else Can Superconductors Do ?

• Expel magnetic fields
• Meissner effect
• Allow a current in a closed circuit to persist
  indefinitely.

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The Meissner Effect
Levitation of Sumo wrestler Ig Nobel Prize
Superconductors acquire a polarization OPPOSITE
to an applied magnetic field. This is the reason
that superconducting materials and magnets repel
one another.
If the temperature increases the sample will lose
its superconductivity and the magnet cannot float
on the superconductor.
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What superfluids can do

• Flow without viscosity
• Dribble through molecule thin cracks
• Climb up and over the sides of a dish
• Remain motionless when the container is spun.

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Applications using Superconductors

• MRI Body scanners
• Accelerator magnets
• Magnetometers for medicine, seismography
• Transport
• Power transmission

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Applications using Superconductors

• Transport

In Jan 08, the Central Japan Railway Company (JR
Central) announced that it plans to construct a
second-generation maglev train that will run from
Tokyo to central Japan. Cost 44.7 billion
dollars Completion in 2025 Speed 500 kilometers
per hour Length 290 kilometers
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Maglev train Superconductivity at 500 km/hr
Existing Japanese MagLev train

• Yamanashi Test Site, Japan
• 33 km long, gt500 Km/hr
• Segment of Tokyo-Osaka new line

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Applications using Superconductors

• Superconducting power transmission
• - currently we waste 20 of our energy just
  transporting it around
• - potentially the next industrial revolution

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Long Distance DC Superconducting Electricity
Pipeline
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MRI Uses Superconducting Magnets

• Closed (1-3 Tesla) and open (0.3T) MRI magnets
  both use Nb-Ti with a transition temperature (Tc)
  of only 9K, -450F.

All are Cooled only by liquid helium until late
2006 .
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MRI - 1B annual market
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Superconducting Magnetometers based on Josephson
Effect
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Particle Accelerators Use Superconducting magnets
Superconducting Tevatron energy-saver
accelerator rings west of Chicago (Batavia,
IL)? Nb-Ti at 4.5 T, 4.2 K
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Mont Blanc
Large Hadron Collider-CERN
Lake Geneva
Switzerland
27 km Tunnel
France
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Some facts about the LHC

• Protons are accelerated to 99.999999991 of the
  speed of light
• The LHC lets us glimpse the conditions 1/100th of
  a billionth of a second after the Big Bang a
  travel back in time by 13.7 billion years
• High energy collisions create particles that
  havent existed in nature since the Big Bang

Find out what makes the Universe tick at the
most fundamental level And find the Higgs boson!
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Concept of Higgs Boson comes from
superconductivity theory
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LHC Depends on Superconductivity
3286 HTS Leads
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Applications of High-Temperature
Superconductivity

• Today
• Over 5,500 cell-phone towers contain high-temp
  SCs
• 3 Prototype substations for power transmission
  in US
• Other markets being developed

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1911-2011 100 Years of Remarkable Progress

• Superconducting devices are pervasive in science
  and medical technologies
• Frictionless current flow allows multiple
  applications.
• Deep principles behind superconductivity
• (esp. High Tc superconductivity) to be
  discovered more Nobel Prizes(?)

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What do we dream of?

• Materials that remain superconducting in any
  field.
• Materials that carry enormous current densities
  so that we can make very powerful magnets.
• Materials that are cheap to make, flexible in
  use, versatile in design and manufacture, strong,
  fracture resistant.

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Summary

• Superconductivity offers excellent science,
  excellent technology, excellent training and the
  possibility of saving the planet !!

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What Else Do We Dream of ?
Even Better Super Conductors!