Physics Lesson 15.8.2 - Superconductivity

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Welcome to our Physics lesson on Superconductivity, this is the second lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Miscellaneous, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.

Superconductivity

A superconductor is a material whose resistance is very low, close to zero. As discussed in tutorial 15.2, resistance of material largely depends on its temperature, i.e. higher the temperature of material, higher its resistance. Given this, a material obviously must behave as a superconductor at very low temperatures (close to the absolute zero).

A Dutch scientist called H. K. Ones was the first who discovered the phenomenon of superconductivity in 1911. When cooling down mercury at very low temperature, he realized that the resistance of mercury became almost zero. During the observations, he noticed that at 4.2 K (-268.960 C) the resistance of mercury suddenly became zero.

Other substances are able to show superconductive properties as well. This occurs when temperature decreases below a threshold value, known as the transition temperature, TC. The table below shows some superconductors along with the corresponding transition temperatures.

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Superconductivity occurs due to the position of atoms in molecules in certain combinations, which cause enormous free spaces between neighbouring atoms. As a result, electrons move unopposed throughout the material.

The other advantage of a superconductor besides the high efficiency of energy transmission is the long lasting current flow when the source stops supplying the circuit.

In the future, there is a lot of possibility to improve the technology of superconductor production. If scientists are able to produce a strong superconductor with a higher transition temperature than the actual materials, this will bring a revolution in technology, as motors and generators dimensions would be four to five times smaller than the actual ones. In addition, computers would be much faster, electricity transmission would be cheaper and more efficient, electromagnets would be stronger and so on.

You have reached the end of Physics lesson 15.8.2 Superconductivity. There are 5 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Miscellaneous, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.

More Miscellaneous Lessons and Learning Resources

Electrodynamics Learning Material
Tutorial ID	Physics Tutorial Title	Revision Notes	Revision Questions
15.8	Miscellaneous
Lesson ID	Physics Lesson Title	Lesson	Video Lesson
15.8.1	Measurement of Current and Voltage
15.8.2	Superconductivity
15.8.3	Electric Current in Liquids
15.8.4	Faraday's Law for Electrolysis
15.8.5	Electric Current in Gases

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