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Meissner Effect

When a superconductor is placed in a weak magnetic field and cooled below its transition temperature, the magnetic field is expelled from the superconductor. This effect is known as the Meissner effect and is a defining characteristic of superconductivity. The Meissner effect causes the magnetic field to penetrate only a small distance into the superconductor before decaying to zero. Superconductors can be categorized as either Type I or Type II depending on how their superconductivity is destroyed when a strong magnetic field is applied.

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48 views1 page

Meissner Effect

When a superconductor is placed in a weak magnetic field and cooled below its transition temperature, the magnetic field is expelled from the superconductor. This effect is known as the Meissner effect and is a defining characteristic of superconductivity. The Meissner effect causes the magnetic field to penetrate only a small distance into the superconductor before decaying to zero. Superconductors can be categorized as either Type I or Type II depending on how their superconductivity is destroyed when a strong magnetic field is applied.

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girlysissy.sam
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When a superconductor is placed in a weak external magnetic field H, and cooled

below its transition temperature, the magnetic field is ejected. The Meissner
effect does not cause the field to be completely ejected but instead, the field
penetrates the superconductor but only to a very small distance, characterized by a
parameter λ, called the London penetration depth, decaying exponentially to zero
within the bulk of the material. The Meissner effect is a defining characteristic
of superconductivity. For most superconductors, the London penetration depth is on
the order of 100 nm.

The Meissner effect is sometimes confused with the kind of diamagnetism one would
expect in a perfect electrical conductor: according to Lenz's law, when a changing
magnetic field is applied to a conductor, it will induce an electric current in the
conductor that creates an opposing magnetic field. In a perfect conductor, an
arbitrarily large current can be induced, and the resulting magnetic field exactly
cancels the applied field.

The Meissner effect is distinct from this – it is the spontaneous expulsion that
occurs during transition to superconductivity. Suppose we have a material in its
normal state, containing a constant internal magnetic field. When the material is
cooled below the critical temperature, we would observe the abrupt expulsion of the
internal magnetic field, which we would not expect based on Lenz's law.

The Meissner effect was given a phenomenological explanation by the brothers Fritz
and Heinz London, who showed that the electromagnetic free energy in a
superconductor is minimized provided
∇ 2 H = λ − 2 H
{\displaystyle \nabla ^{2}\mathbf {H} =\lambda ^{-2}\mathbf {H} \,}
where H is the magnetic field and λ is the London penetration depth.

This equation, which is known as the London equation, predicts that the magnetic
field in a superconductor decays exponentially from whatever value it possesses at
the surface.

A superconductor with little or no magnetic field within it is said to be in the


Meissner state. The Meissner state breaks down when the applied magnetic field is
too large. Superconductors can be divided into two classes according to how this
breakdown occurs. In Type I superconductors, superconductivity is abruptly
destroyed when the strength of the applied field rises above a critical value Hc.
Depending on the geometry of the sample, one may obtain an intermediate state[24]
consisting of a baroque pattern[25] of regions of normal material carrying a
magnetic field mixed with regions of superconducting material containing no field.
In Type II superconductors, raising the applied field past a critical value Hc1
leads to a mixed state (also known as the vortex state) in which an increasing
amount of magnetic flux penetrates the material, but there remains no resistance to
the flow of electric current as long as the current is not too large. At a second
critical field strength Hc2, superconductivity is destroyed. The mixed state is
actually caused by vortices in the electronic superfluid, sometimes called fluxons
because the flux carried by these vortices is quantized. Most pure elemental
superconductors, except niobium and carbon nanotubes, are Type I, while almost all
impure and compound superconductors are Type II.

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