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.

Ceramics as a super conductor.

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. Texturing is essential to achieve high current densities in polycrystalline wires or the thick films of ceramic superconductors. Chemical formula is yba2cu3o7.

The high t c field is continually expanding. 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. However discoveries in the late 20th century have also shown some ceramics to be the most electrically conducting.

Conductive ceramics advanced industrial materials that owing to modifications in their structure serve as electrical conductors. Yba 2 cu 3 o 7 x was the first ceramic superconductor discovered with t c greater than liquid nitrogen temperature. The superconductor we will be experimenting with is an yttrium y barium ba and copper cu composition. Many ceramic superconductors physically behave as superconductors of the second type.

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.