Superconductivity: Fundamentals and Applications

This is the second English edition of what has become one of the definitive works on superconductivity in German –– currently in its sixth edition.
Comprehensive and easy to understand, this introductory text is written especially with the non–specialist in mind. The authors, both long–term experts in this field, present the fundamental considerations without the need for extensive mathematics, describing the various phenomena connected with the superconducting state, with liberal insertion of experimental facts and examples for modern applications.
While all fields of superconducting phenomena are dealt with in detail, this new edition pays particular attention to the groundbreaking discovery of magnesium diboride and the current developments in this field. In addition, a new chapter provides an overview of the elements, alloys and compounds where superconductivity has been observed in experiments, together with their major characteristics. The chapter on technical applications has been considerably expanded to accommodate microelectronics, while the key aspects of criticalcurrents as well as Josephson junctions now each have their own chapter.
A ′must–have′ for students and graduates.


Spis treści:
Introduction.
1 Fundamental Properties of Superconductors.
1.1 The Vanishing of the Electrical Resistance.
1.2 Ideal Diamagnetism, Flux Lines, and Flux Quantization.
1.3 Flux Quantization in a Superconducting Ring.
1.4 Superconductivity: A Macroscopic Quantum Phenomenon.
1.5 Quantum Interference.
2 Superconducting Elements, Alloys, and Compounds.
2.1 Conventional and Unconventional Superconductors.
2.2 Superconducting Elements.
2.3 Superconducting Alloys and Metallic Compounds.
2.4 Fullerides.
2.5 Chevrel Phases and Boron Carbides.
2.6 Heavy–Fermion Superconductors.
2.7 Natural and Artificial Layered Superconductors.
2.8 The Superconducting Oxides.
2.9 Organic Superconductors.
2.10 Superconductivity Due to the Field Effect.
3 Cooper Pairing.
3.1 Conventional Superconductivity.
3.2 Unconventional Superconductivity.
4 Thermodynamics and Thermal Properties of the Superconducting State.
4.1 General Aspects of Thermodynamics.
4.2 Specific Heat.
4.3 Thermal Conductivity.
4.4 Ginzburg–Landau Theory.
4.5 Characteristic Lengths of Ginzburg–Landau Theory.
4.6 Type–I Superconductors in a Magnetic Field.
4.7 Type–II Superconductors in a Magnetic Field.
4.8 Fluctuations Above the Transition Temperature.
4.9 States Outside Thermodynamic Equilibrium.
5 Critical Currents in Type–I and Type–II Superconductors.
5.1 Limit of the Supercurrent Due to Pair Breaking.
5.2 Type–I Superconductors.
5.3 Type–II Superconductors.
6 Josephson Junctions and Their Properties.
6.1 Current Transport Across Interfaces in a Superconductor.
6.2 The RCSJ Model.
6.3 Josephson Junctions Under Microwave Irradiation.
6.4 Vortices in Long Josephson Junctions.
6.5 Quantum Properties of Superconducting Tunnel Junctions.
7 Applications of Superconductivity.
7.1 Superconducting Magnetic Coils.
7.2 Superconducting Permanent Magnets.
7.3 Applications of Superconducting Magnets.
7.4 Superconductors for Power Transmission: Cables, Transformers, and Current–Limiting Devices.
7.5 Superconducting Resonators and Filters.
7.6 Superconducting Detectors.
7.7 Superconductors in Microelectronics.
Monographs and Collections.
Outlook.
Subject Index.

Nota biograficzna:
Professor Werner Buckel (1920–2003) became a professor at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1960 after receiving his PhD at the University of Erlangen. Except for three years which he spent establishing the Institute f or Superconductivity at the Research Center in Jülich, Germany, he remained at the Technical University of Karlsruhe until his retirement in 1985. Among other honorary positions, Professor Buckel held the chair of the president of the German Physical Society and the European Physical Society and was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of the Sciences and the Leibnitz Society, Berlin. He died in February 2003.
Professor Reinhold Kleiner, born 1962, studied general physics at the Technical University of Munich, and there received his PhD in 1992 with a thesis on intrinsic Josephson efects in high temperature superconductors. After spending two years at the University of California at Berkeley, he returned to become assistant professor at the University of Erlangen–Nürnberg, Germany. In 2000, Reinhold Kleiner accepted a position as a full professor for experimental solid–state physics at the physics institute of the University of Tübingen, Germany. His research interests include superconductivity and magnetism, with a focus on Josephson effects and superconducting quantum interferometry.