What Is a High-Temperature Superconductor?

High-temperature superconductors are a family of superconducting materials that have general structural features and relatively well-spaced copper oxide planes. They are also called copper oxide superconductors. High-temperature superconductors are not the hundreds of thousands of temperatures that most people think, but they are much higher than the ultra-low temperatures required by the original superconductors, but there are also about -200 degrees Celsius. In the superconductors studied by humans, the temperature is increased a lot, so it is called a high temperature superconductor.

35K was discovered by Bernoz and Mueller in 1986

Exploration of new and higher-temperature superconductors has been intense. Because the theory of high-temperature superconductivity has not been well established, the progress of exploration is slow. Although new superconductors and higher temperature superconductivity have been reported from time to time, no real new breakthrough has been achieved.

Why do many superconducting materials need to be superconducting at very low temperatures? It is because at normal temperature, there are gaps between the conductor atoms. When the electrons move between the atoms, they must pass through these gaps, collide with the atoms, and cause the atoms to vibrate and generate resistance. At very low temperatures, there are almost no gaps between conductor atoms, and electrons can pass freely without colliding with the atoms. In the future, research on normal temperature superconducting materials should choose appropriate mixtures of different elements, so that atoms of different sizes and shapes are combined, so that there are no gaps between the atoms, so that electrons can pass freely without collisions between the atoms. The difficulty in the development of normal temperature superconducting materials is that the atoms of many materials vibrate at normal temperature, and the gaps between the atoms are relatively large. As long as the mixed elements are selected properly, normal temperature superconducting materials can be produced on a large scale soon.

We believe that the descendants of Yan Huang, who had made remarkable achievements in the field of copper-based high-temperature superconductors, will definitely make more brilliant contributions on the journey to realize the dream of human room temperature superconductors. ^[3]

Some superconductors and their critical transition temperatures

Critical transition temperature T c (Kelvin, K)	Material / Substance Boiling Point	kind
138K	Hg 12 Tl 3 Ba 30 Ca 30 Cu 45 O 127	Copper oxide superconductor
110K	Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca 2 Cu 3 O 10 (BSCCO)
92K	YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 (YBCO)
77K	Boiling point of N 2
43K	SmFeAs (O, F)	Iron-based superconductor
41K	CeFeAs (O, F)
26K	LaFeAs (O, F)
20K	H 2 boiling point
18K	Nb 3 Sn	Metal low temperature superconductor
10K	NbTi
4.25K	He's boiling point
4.2K	Hg (mercury)	Metal low temperature superconductor