In 1999, R Tao, X. Zhang, X. Tang, PW Anderson, reported that fine paritcles of a Br-Sr-Ca-Cu-O superconductor would clump into a ball when suspended in liquid nitrogen and subjected to an electric field. The discovery was covered in a physics news update article. The last author PW Anderson is the Nobel prize winning PW Anderson. The thoeretical explanation advanced by Tao et al. at the time was, (briefly),
This interesting phenomenon directly relates the surfacetension to the Josephson coupling energy.
I came across this research reading papers authored by JE Hirsch of UCSD. Dr. Hirsch has advanced and interesting modification of the BCS theory of superconductors, 'the hole theory of superconductivity'. If the 'Tao effect' was shown to be reproducible, it would help to confirm Hirsch's theory. Recently however, Ghosh and Hirsch reported that they have observed the Tao effect in non-superconducting particles as well as in superconductor particles that are not in the superconducting state, (see picture below). There work was reported in Physical Review B as well as on arxiv. This interesting work will be reported at the APS March meeting this year in Baltimore Maryland.
References
Physical Review B article reporting the discovery
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v83/i26/p5575_1
Physics News Update Article
http://www.aip.org/pnu/1999/split/pnu464-1.htm
PW Anderson on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Warren_Anderson
JE Hirsch hole theory of superconductivity
http://prb.aps.org.lib-ezproxy.tamu.edu:2048/abstract/PRB/v71/i18/e184521
and free on arxiv
http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0406489
Ghosh and Hirsch experiment:
http://prb.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v86/i5/e054511
Ghosh R.S.B. & Hirsch J.E. (2012). Spherical agglomeration of superconducting and normal microparticles with and without applied electric field, Physical Review B, 86 (5) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.86.054511
APS March Meeting presentation:
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/188812
Picture of the Day
APS March Meeting presentation:
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/188812
Picture of the Day
From 1/12/13 |
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