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Nobel 2003: superconductivity and superfluidity

Nature Reviews Physics volume 5, page 557 (2023)Cite this article

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20 years ago, the Nobel Prize in Physics was jointly awarded to Vitaly Ginzburg, Alexei Abrikosov and Anthony Leggett for contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids. A superconductor is a material that offers zero resistance to an applied current and a superfluid is a liquid absent of viscosity that exhibits frictionless flow — the former can be considered a charged version of the latter. Both are examples of low-temperature, ordered quantum states, in which random thermal fluctuations are suppressed.

Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 and for the next few decades the theory about the underlying physics remained unresolved. In the 1950s, Ginzburg, working at the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow with Lev Landau, came up with a theory to understand the interaction between a superconducting material and a magnetic field. A superconductor exhibits perfect diamagnetism — meaning that it expulses a magnetic field. However, above a critical field, magnetic flux penetrates the material, destroying the superconductivity. The Ginzburg–Landau (GL) theory introduced a parameter, κ, which is the ratio of two length scales: the penetration depth (λ) and coherence length (ξ). If κ < 1/√2, the system cannot support the co-existence of superconductivity and magnetism. At that time, most known superconductors satisfied this criterion and so the opposite case was somewhat dismissed.

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References

Original articles

  • Ginzburg, V. L. & Landau, L. D. On the theory of superconductivity. Zh. Eksp. Theor. Fiz 20, 1064–1082 (1950)

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  • Abrikosov, A. A. On the magnetic properties of superconductors of the second group. JETP 5, 1174–1182 (1957)

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  • Leggett, A. J. Interpretation of recent results on He3 below 3 mK: A new liquid phase? Phys. Rev. Lett. 29, 1227–1230 (1972)

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Related articles

  • Bardeen, J., Cooper, L. N. & Schrieffer, J. R. Theory of superconductivity. Phys. Rev. 108, 1175 (1957)

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  • Osheroff, D. D., Gully, W. J., Richardson, R. C. & Lee, D. M. New magnetic phenomena in liquid He3 below 3 mK. Phys Rev Lett. 29, 920 (1972)

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    Saleem Denholme

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  1. Saleem Denholme
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Correspondence to Saleem Denholme.

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Denholme, S. Nobel 2003: superconductivity and superfluidity. Nat Rev Phys 5, 557 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00656-2

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