The Meisner effect; persistent currents; the Josephson effect. Several of the phenomena of superconductivity are observed in three experiments carried out in a liquid helium cryostat. The transition to the superconducting state of each of several bulk samples of Type I and II superconductors is observed in measurements of the exclusion of magnetic field (the Meisner effect) from samples as the temperature is gradually reduced by the flow of cold gas from boiling helium.
The persistence of a current induced in a superconducting cylinder of lead is demonstrated by measurements of its magnetic field over a period of a day. The tunneling of Cooper pairs through an insulating junction between two superconductors (the DC Josephson effect) is demonstrated, and the magnitude of the fluxoid is measured by observation of the effect of a magnetic field on the Josephson current.
Lab Guide (PDF)
A cooled intrinsic germanium solid-state X-ray detector. (Image courtesy of Junior Lab staff.)
References
London, F., and H. London. "The Electromagnetic Equations of the Superconductor." Reprinted from Proceedings of the Royal Society London A149 (1935): 71-88.
Bommel, H. E. "Ultrasonic Attenuation in Superconducting Lead." The Physical Review 96, no. 1 (October 1954): 79-81.
Corak, W. S., B. B. Goodman, C. B. Satterwaite, and A. Wexler. "Atomic Heats of Normal and Superconducting Vanadium." The Physical Review 102, no. 3 (May 1956): 43-48.
Bardeen, J., L. N. Cooper, and J. R. Schrieffer. "Theory of Superconductivity." The Physical Review 108, no. 5 (1957): 1175-1204.
Crowe, J. W. "Trapped-Flux Superconducting Memory." Reprinted from IBM J Res Develop 1 (1957): 295-303.
Cooper, Leon N. "Theory of Superconductivity." American Journal of Physics 28, no. 2 (February 1960): 91-101.
Knuzler, J. E., E. Buehler, F. S. L. Hsu, and J. H. Wernick. "Superconductivity in Nb3Sn at High Current Density in a Magnetic Field of 88 kgauss." The Physical Review Letters (1961): 89-91.
Nobel Prize Lecture for Lev Davidovic Landau. Stockholm, Sweden, 1962. (For his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium.)
Ginsberg, D. M. "Resource Letter Scy-1 on Superconductivity." American Journal of Physics 32, no. 2 (February 1964): 1-5.
Onnes, H. K. "Report on the Researches Made in the Leiden Cryogenic Laboratory between the Second and Third International Congress on Refrigeration." In Superconductivity: Selected Reprints. New York, NY: American Association of Physics Teachers, 1964.
Feynman, Richard P. "A Seminar on Superconductivity." Chapter 21 in Feynman Lectures on Physics. Vol. III. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1965. ISBN:9780201020106.
Parks, R. D. "Quantum Effects in Superconductors." Scientific American 213, no. 4 (October 1965): 57-67.
Nobel Lecture for John Bardeen, Leon N Cooper, and J Robert Schrieffer. Stockholm, Sweden, 1972. (For their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory.)
Bardeen, J. "Electron-phonon Interactions and Superconductivity." Physics Today 26 (1973): 41-46.
Nobel Lectures for Leo Esaki, and Ivar Giaever (for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors respectively,) and Brian D Josephson (for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as Josephson effects.) Sotckholm, Sweden, 1973.
Cooper, Leon N. "Microscopic Quantum Interference in the Theory of Superconductivity." Physics Today 26 (July 1973): 31-39.
Schrieffer, J. R. "Macroscopic Quantum Phenomena from Pairing in Superconductors." Physics Today 26 (July 1973): 23-28.
Tinkham, Michael. Introduction to Superconductivity. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1975, 151 pages. ISBN: 9780070648777.
Josephson Effects
Josephson, B. D. "Coupled Superconductors." Reviews of Modern Physics 36, no. 1 (1963): 216-220.
Various Authors. "Observation of Josephson effect and Measurement of e/h." [1963] In Adventures in Experimental Physics. Princeton, NJ: World Science Communications, 1972. ISSN: 0044-6386.
Langenberg, D. N., D. J. Scalapino, and B. N. Taylor. "The Josephson Effects." Scientific American 214, no. 5 (May 1966): 30-39.
Richards, P. L., S. Shapiro, and C. C. Grimes. "Student Laboratory Demonstration of Flux Quantization and the Josephson Effect in Superconductors." American Journal of Physics 36, no. 8 (August 1968): 690-697.
Clarke, J. "The Josephson Effect and e/h." American Journal of Physics 38, no. 9 (September 1970): 1071-1092.
Scalapino, D. J. "Josephson Effects." [1970] In Encyclopedia of Physics. Edited by Rita G. Lerner and George L. Trigg. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981, pp. 479-481. ISBN: 9780201043136.
Bruynseraede, Y., C. Vlekken, and C. Van Haesendonck. "Giaever and Josephson Tunneling." Superconducting Electronics. Vol. F59, NATO ASI Series. Springer-Verlag, 1989.