Road2RTS

Welcome

A little over 20 years ago scientists working in the field of superconductivity felt what it was like to be “rock stars.” This was due to the discovery by Georg Bednorz and Alex Mueller of a new class of copper oxide superconductors with transition temperature (Tc) up to 35 K, the subsequent extension of that discovery by Paul Chu and his collaborators to YBCO with Tc about 90 K, and contributions by others who found similar perovskite materials that pushed the highest-known Tc to 135 K at atmospheric pressure, and to 164 K with application of high pressure. However, in the past 15 years or so, while additional superconductors have been found, most notably MgB2, known higher superconducting transition temperatures have not moved beyond those found in the dramatic 5-year period that began with the Bednorz/Mueller discovery in 1986. The generic name given to the cuprate-based superconductors is High Temperature Superconductors, or more simply HTS.

There have been much attention and money paid to turning powders of BSCCO and YBCO into wires and tapes that can carry hundreds of amps of electrical current, but the fact remains that the finished products are very expensive in comparison to conductors such as copper and to conventional superconducting cables, such as those using NbTi and Nb3Sn, that operate at liquid helium temperature. While some scenarios have been proposed for finding higher superconducting transition temperatures, no promising new class of materials has yet been found. Furthermore, while there have been some minor successes in finding applications for devices incorporating HTS components, in many industries the high cost, reliability and size of cryogenic containment vessels renders such systems undesirable.

Clearly, the aversion to superconductivity would dissipate if (as Marvin Cohen once said) one could enter a hardware shop and request a few meters of conducting wire, and have the clerk respond “superconducting or normal.” The simple aim of this workshop is to bring together a collection of distinguished scientists to engage in a dialog that will point the way to room temperature superconductivity, or more simply RTS. Please note the list of this international array of scientists. It includes many of the people who made seminal discoveries of new superconductors, theorists, experimentalists in physics, chemistry and materials science, and finally, a few individuals who can distinguish between those superconductor applications that would be undiminished at room temperature and those that would cease to be viable.

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Lecturers

Jun Akimitsu, Aoyama-Gakuin U.
Yevgeny Antipov, Moscow State
U.Neil Ashcroft, Cornell U.
Mac Beasley, Stanford U.
Ivan Božović, Brookhaven Nat’l Lab (1)(2)
Paul Chu, U. of Houston/HKUST
Marvin Cohen, U. Cal., Berkeley
Ted Geballe, Stanford U.
Øystein Fischer, U. of Genève
Paul Grant, Stanford U.
Alex Gurevich, NHMFL, FL State U.
Shinya Hasuo, ISTEC/SRL
Steve Kivelson, Stanford U.
Richard Klemm, U. of Central FL
Vladimir Kresin, Lawrence Berkeley NL
Joachim Mannhart, U. of Augsburg
Davor Pavuna, EPF de Lausanne
Bernard Raveau, ISMRA
Caen Maurice Rice, ETH Zürich
Carl Rosner, CardioMag Imaging
John Sarrao, LANL
Doug Scalapino, U. Cal. SB
Katsuya Shimizu, Osaka U.
Asle Sudbø, NTNU Trondheim
Zlatko Tesanovic, Johns Hopkins U.
Shin-ichi Uchida, U. of Tokyo
Chandra Varma, U. Cal., Riverside
Anvar Zakhidov, U. of Texas, Dallas

Summary

Ivan Božović, Brookhaven Nat’l Lab
Paul Grant, Stanford U. (1) (2)
Joachim Mannhart, U. of Augsburg
Doug Scalapino, U. Cal. SB

The Road to Room Temperature Superconductivity.

Welcome

Problems?

Lecturers

Summary

Group Photo