Superconductors

Superconductors is neither about basic aspects of superconductivity nor about its applications, but its mainstay is superconducting materials. Unusual and unconventional features of a large variety of novel superconductors are presented and their technological potential as practical superconductors assessed. The book begins with an introduction to basic aspects of superconductivity. The presentation is readily accessible to readers from a diverse range of scientific and technical disciplines, such as metallurgy, materials science, materials engineering, electronic and device engineering, and chemistry. The derivation of mathematical formulas and equations has been kept to a minimum and, wherever necessary, short appendices with essential mathematics have been added at the end of the text. The book is not meant to serve as an encyclopaedia, describing each and every superconductor that exists, but focuses on important milestones in their exciting development.1. Onnes' discovery and hundred years of superconductors ; 2. The superconducting state ; 3. Superconducting transition and its basic phenomenology ; 4. Thermodynamics and general properties ; 5. Advent of type-II superconductors ; 6. Critical current and flux pinning ; 7. Superconductors in abundance ; 8. Niobium-zirconium and niobium-titanium alloys ; 9. A-15 superconductors ; 10. Conductor development of A-15 superconductors ; 11. Chevrel phase superconductors ; 12. Rare-earth based ternary superconductors and quaternary borocarbides ; 13. Heavy fermion superconductors ; 14. Organic superconductors ; 15. Superconducting magnesium diboride ; 16. High temperature cuprate superconductors ; 17. Thin film technology and conductor development of HTS cuprates ; 18. Bulk HTS cuprates ; 19. Ruthenates and ruthenocuprates ; 20. Fe based superconductors ; 21. Miscellaneous superconductors