Superconductivity Fundamentals and Applications

This is the second English edition of what has become one of the definitive works on superconductivity in German -- currently in its sixth edition. Comprehensive and easy to understand, this introductory text is written especially with the non-specialist in mind. The authors, both long-term experts in this field, present the fundamental considerations without the need for extensive mathematics, describing the various phenomena connected with the superconducting state, with liberal insertion of experimental facts and examples for modern applications. While all fields of superconducting phenomena are dealt with in detail, this new edition pays particular attention to the groundbreaking discovery of magnesium diboride and the current developments in this field. In addition, a new chapter provides an overview of the elements, alloys and compounds where superconductivity has been observed in experiments, together with their major characteristics. The chapter on technical applications has been considerably expanded to accommodate microelectronics, while the key aspects of critical currents as well as Josephson junctions now each have their own chapter. A 'must-have' for students and graduates.

Professor Werner Buckel (1920-2003) became a professor at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1960 after receiving his PhD at the University of Erlangen. Except for three years which he spent establishing the Institute for Superconductivity at the Research Center in Jnlich, Germany, he remained at the Technical University of Karlsruhe until his retirement in 1985. Among other honorary positions, Professor Buckel held the chair of the president of the German Physical Society and the European Physical Society and was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of the Sciences and the Leibnitz Society, Berlin. He died in February 2003.<br> <br> Professor Reinhold Kleiner, born 1962, studied general physics at the Technical University of Munich, and there received his PhD in 1992 with a thesis on intrinsic Josephson efects in high temperature superconductors. After spending two years at the University of California at Berkeley, he returned to become assistant professor at the University of Erlangen-Nnrnberg, Germany. In 2000, Reinhold Kleiner accepted a position as a full professor for experimental solid-state physics at the physics institute of the University of Tnbingen, Germany. His research interests include superconductivity and magnetism, with a focus on Josephson effects and superconducting quantum interferometry.