BCS theory of superconductivity
Teoría BCS de la superconductividad
- Date
- 1957 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Illinois, Urbana, United States
- Credited to
- John Bardeen; Leon Cooper; John Robert Schrieffer
- People
- 👤 John Bardeen1908–1991👤 John Robert Schrieffer1931–2019👤 Leon N. Cooper1930–2024
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Electrons form Cooper pairs through phonon exchange and condense into a collective state with an energy gap that prevents dissipation. It explains, 46 years later, Onnes's phenomenon and shows the power of spontaneous symmetry breaking.
Bardeen is the only physicist with two Nobel Prizes in Physics (transistor 1956, BCS 1972).
What it led to
- Higgs mechanism (Nambu, Anderson)
- Josephson effect
- Superfluidity of helium-3 and neutron stars
- Search for high-temperature superconductors
Built on
- Cooper pair1956
- Onnes's superconductivity and the Meissner effect
- Isotope effect (1950)
- Ginzburg-Landau theory
- Cooper pairs (1956)
Made possible
- Goldstone boson1960
- High-field superconducting magnet (Nb3Sn)1961
- Josephson effect1962
- High-temperature superconductivity (cuprates)1986
- Design of superconducting materials
- Superconducting electronics