Characterizing the London Penetration Depth in a High Tc Superconductor Across the Phase Transition

This experiment sought to characterize the London penetration depth in Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YCBO), a high temperature superconductor. It is known as a “high temperature” superconductor because of its relatively high critical temperature: the temperature at which superconducting properties appear. The critical temperature for YCBO was found in this experiment to be 95.7 K, which was attained by submerging the measurement probe in liquid nitrogen (see report, figure 1).

One superconducting property of interest is the Meissner effect. This is the characteristic behaviour of a superconductor placed in a magnetic field to have induced internal currents and for these currents to in turn disturb and expel the magnetic field. This is the same phenomenon that allows for exciting magnetic levitation demonstrations that are commonly associated with superconductors.

I found this experiment to be interesting because of the intricate apparatus used, and the nature of studying superconductors and their phase transition. And, of course, who doesn’t like pouring liquid nitrogen…

See the report below for an in-depth description of the experiment and the results obtained.

If your browser doesn’t support my PDF embedding, find my report here