High-Temperature Superconductors : Occurrence, Synthesis and Applications

Following the discovery of the oxide superconductors in 1986 by Bednorz and Muller, a number of new superconducting compounds was found exhibiting superconductivity above the liquid nitrogen temperature including rare-earth oxides and bismuth oxides, enabling cheaper cooling methods to be applied. The new class of superconducting materials featuring high critical temperatures (Tc above 77 K) and high second critical magnetic fields gave a new impetus to the research and development in superconductivity. Governments of many countries worldwide have encouraged scientists, engineers and industry to develop high temperature superconducting materials for practical use. The authors hope that, especially for young researchers, new upcoming engineers and students of superconductivity theory extension, the collected know-how in technology of superconducting thin films, wires, and bulks, and the new opportunities available for practical applications by the unique features of high-Tc materials will be very useful.

The volume is designed to cover the recent achievements in occurrence, synthesis and application of high-Tc superconductors. The main objective of this volume is to summarize the recent advances in material science of high-Tc superconductors, including their properties, processing, and applications. New and challenging issues appear in this book, like superconducting large grain bulk RE-123, flux pinning, nanowire network fabrics and their applications, and a quantitative analysis on the normal-state Nernst coefficient. Furthermore, the book also covers recent developments on a variety of materials and the progress made, especially concerning the magnetic characterization of bulk C-doped MgB2, silver added bulk FeSe, and (BiPb)SrCaCuO systems, respectively.