Using Electromagnetic Properties to Identify and Design Superconducting Materials

Abstract

Superconductors have a wide array of applications, such as medical imaging, supercomputing, and electric power transmission, but superconducting materials only operate at very cold temperatures. Thus, the quest to engineer room temperature superconductors is currently a hot topic of research. To accomplish this mission, it is important to have a complete understanding of the material properties that are being used to create these superconductors. Understanding the atomic and electromagnetic properties of the prospective materials will provide tremendous insight into the best choice for the materials. Therefore, a theoretical model that incorporates electromagnetic field theory and quantum mechanics principles is utilized to explain the electrical and magnetic characteristics of superconductors. This model can be used to describe the electrical resistance response and why it vanishes at the material’s critical temperature. The model can also explain the behavior of magnetic fields and why some superconducting materials completely exclude magnetic fields while other superconductors partially exclude these fields. Thus, this theoretical analysis produces a model that describes the behavior of both type I and type II superconductors. Since there are subtle differences between superconductors and perfect conductors, this model also accounts for this distinction and explains why superconductors behave differently than perfect conductors. Therefore, this theory addresses the major properties associated with superconducting materials and thus will aid researchers in the pursuit of designing room temperature superconductors.