Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] superconductivity



I am trying to understand (Type I) superconductivity. Here is what I understand so far:

A periodic potential exists in a perfectly crystalline conducting solid such that electrons can travel without resistance unless they encounter
a) impurities (in which case it is not a perfect crystal)
b) vibrations in the crystal lattice, known as phonons. When the electrons encounter these things they scatter which shows up macroscopically as resistance. In a truly perfect crystal at 0K we should expect to find 0 resistance. (Thanks to a document due to Carl Mungan I found on the web for details on this.)

Some interesting substances display this property (and others) at T>0K. They are called superconductors. The mechanism which allows this to occur is coupling of electrons due to phonons, effectively combining two fermions into a boson and lowering the overall energy of the electrons. Somehow (this is where I am fuzzy) this prevents the electron pairs to avoid being scattered by phonons or impurities.

How correct is the above and what are the missing details at the end? I have looked in some solid state books and googled to no avail.

Justin Parke
Oakland Mills High School
Columbia, MD
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l