The discovery of high-Tc superconductivity-unexpected discovery, unconventional behaviour

Abstract

A brief review on some peculiar properties of high temperature superconductors (HTS) is presented. Twenty years after the discovery, it appears more and more clear that the behaviour of this new class of materials is remarkably different from what have been re-classified as “conventional” superconductors. In the following we will focus our attention on the study of two phenomena, namely the Josephson effect and the Meissner effect, where the unconventional nature of superconductivity in HTS offers exciting perspectives both for the understanding of the underlying mechanism, so far still unknown, and for the large potential of applications in different areas of superconducting electronics.

Keywords

• high temperature superconductors
• Josephson effect
• macroscopic quantum tunneling
• electrodynamic response
• Meissner effect