Physicists looking at the history of superconductors have been keeping an eye on what the future might bring. Seamus Davis of Brookhaven National Laboratory, speaking at this year’s Industrial Physics Forum, reviewed the recent history of high-temperature superconductivity development. He and his fellow researchers look for an all-encompassing theory that can explain superconductivity as a whole.
For years after the first superconductors were created, the highest temperature they were able to operate at—designated by Tc—hovered close to absolute zero and climbed at an excruciating rate of less than a degree a year new materials were discovered. Then in the late 1980s, with the discovery of copper oxide superconductors, Tc jumped suddenly, and the world hoped to see a revolution in technology as a result. Visions of levitating trains, superconducting server farms, lossless electricity transfer, and the like peppered the newspapers. Davis compared the anticipated technological revolution with the actual technological revolution that semiconductors brought about.
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