YBCO Superconductors and a Comparative Study on Scattering Strengths

Achieving of zero resistance during the conduction in certain materials below a characteristic temperature was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911. A normal conductor shows some resistance even near absolute zero but in a superconductor, when the material is cooled below its critical temperature, the resistance drops abruptly to zero. With no power source, an electric current flowing in a loop of super conducting wire persists indefinitely. As the super conducting systems promise wide range of applications for the human welfare, particularly in the areas of communication, memory devices, medical scanners etc., therefore, measuring of their thermal conduction has been a great interest of the researchers. Due to its peculiar structure and configuration, YBCO has been most studied material. The present paper discusses about the YBCO i.e. YBa₂Cu₃O₇ Superconductors considering the experimental work carried out by Cohen et. al. Simulation technique is being applied in measuring the conductivity of YBCO superconductor in the temperature range from 10 K to 280 K and observations show a good agreement with the experimental results between 10 to 40K and 160-240K and poor in the range 40-160 K, whereas beyond 240K i.e. up to 280K has also been measured for which the experimental results are yet to be found. Thus, the present mathematical model validates the estimation of the thermal conductivity of YBa₂Cu₃O₇ superconductors up to 240K and comparing with other results, impact of the scattering strengths can be noticed.