Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Superconducting Niobium-Titanium: Enabler for Affordable MRI and the Search for the Higgs Boson

  • Published:
Physics in Perspective Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In 1961, Bell Telephone Laboratories researchers startled the world of physics by reporting that, at temperatures near absolute zero, a superconducting niobium-tin compound could support enormous electric current densities without resistance in the presence of very high magnetic fields. Suddenly, it became possible to fabricate supermagnets that generate high magnetic fields with unprecedented efficiency and economy. Scientists raced to find additional such materials and also to account theoretically for their behavior. Disregarded early on as unpromising, niobium-titanium alloys eventually emerged from among thousands of superconductors to become the most widely used, finding application in many thousands of MRI medical imaging systems and in huge particle accelerator magnets. In 1962, at Atomics International, experiments that revealed the supermagnet promise of niobium-titanium alloys also made essential contributions to the confirmation of the initially overlooked superconductivity theories of Soviet scientists Ginzburg, Landau, Abrikosov, and Gor'kov as the appropriate framework for understanding the physics of high magnetic field superconductivity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Lyndon Evans, ed., “The Large Hadron Collider: Marvel of Technology” (Lausanne: CERN and EPFL Press, 2009), 4.

  2. “Market,” Conectus, accessed September 24, 2015, http://www.conectus.org/market.html.

  3. Bernd Müller, “Refrigerator for the Big Bang,” Linde Technology 2(8) (2008), 13–15.

  4. John E. Kunzler, Ernest Buehler, F. S. L. Hsu, and Jack H. Wernick, “Superconductivity in Nb3Sn at High Current Density in a Magnetic Field of 88 kgauss,” Physical Review Letters 6 (1961), 89–91.

  5. Ted G. Berlincourt, “Size Effect in the Hall Effect of Cu, and Superconductivity of Metastable U Base Mo Alloys,” in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Low Temperature Physics and Chemistry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958) 492–96; “Hall Effect, Resistivity and Superconductivity of Some Metastable Uranium-Rich Alloys,” Journal of the Physics and Chemistry of Solids 11 (1959), 12–17.

  6. Richard R. Hake, Donald H. Leslie, and Ted G. Berlincourt, “Resistivity, Hall Effect, Electronic Specific Heat, and Superconductivity of Binary bcc Ti alloys,” Bulletin of the American Physical Society 4 (1959), 362.

  7. Ted G. Berlincourt, Richard R. Hake, and Donald H. Leslie, Atomics International Laboratory Notebook A121484–A121492 (1961).

  8. Ted G. Berlincourt, “Type II Superconductivity: Quest for Understanding,” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Magnetics 20 (1987), 403–12.

  9. John E. Kunzler and Bernd T. Matthias, Superconducting Device Consisting of a Niobium-Zirconium Composition, US Patent 3,281,736, filed April 24, 1961, and issued October 25, 1966.

  10. Bernd T. Matthias, Superconducting Device Consisting of a Niobium-Titanium Composition, US Patent 3,167,692, filed April 24, 1961, and issued January 26, 1965.

  11. Ted G. Berlincourt, Richard R. Hake, and Donald H. Leslie, Atomics International Laboratory Notebook B063551–B063562 (1961).

  12. Vitaly L. Ginzburg and Lev D. Landau, “On the Theory of Superconductivity,” Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki 20 (1950), 1064–82; Vitaly L. Ginzburg, “On the Theory of Superconductivity,” Nuovo Cimento 2 (1955), 1234–50; Alexei A. Abrikosov, “Influence of Size on Critical Field of Superconductors of Second Group,” Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR 86 (1952), 489–92; Alexei A. Abrikosov, “On the Magnetic Properties of Superconductors of the Second Group,” Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki 32 (1957), 1442–52 [English Translation: Soviet Physics—JETP 5 (1957), 1174–82]; Lev P. Gor'kov “Microscopic Derivation of the Ginzburg-Landau Equations in the Theory of Superconductivity,” Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki 36 (1959), 1918–23 [English Translation: Soviet Physics—JETP 36 (1959), 1364–67]; Lev P. Gor'kov “Theory of Superconducting Alloys in a Strong Magnetic Field Near the Critical Temperature,” Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki 37 (1959), 1407–16 [English Translation: Soviet Physics—JETP 10 (1960), 998–1004].

  13. Kurt Mendelssohn and J. R. Moore, “Specific Heat of a Superconducting Alloy,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A151 (1935), 334–41; “Supra-Conducting Alloys,” Nature 135 (1935), 826–27.

  14. Ginzburg and Landau, “Theory of Superconductivity” (ref. 12); Ginzburg, “Theory of Superconductivity” (ref. 12).

  15. Gennady Gorelik, “The Top-Secret Life of Lev Landau,” Scientific American 277 (1997) 72–77.

  16. “Vitaly L. Ginzburg–Biographical,” accessed September, 24, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2003/ginzburg-bio.html.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Lev V. Shubnikov, V. I. Khomkevich, Yu. D. Shepelev, and Yu. N. Rjabinin, “Magnetic Properties of Superconducting Metals and Alloys,” Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki 7 (1937), 221–37.

  19. Ibid.

  20. N. V. Zavaritskii, “Investigation of Superconducting Properties of Films of Thallium and Tin Deposited at Low Temperatures,” Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR 86 (1952), 501–4.

  21. Abrikosov, “Influence of Size on Critical Field” (ref. 12).

  22. Abrikosov, “Magnetic Properties of Superconductors” (ref. 12). In this paper, he attributed to Landau the first suggestion that kappa might be greater than 0.707 for alloys.

  23. A. G. Shepelev, “The Discovery of Type II Superconductors (Shubnikov Phase),” in Superconductor, ed. Adir Moyses Luiz, (Rijeka, Croatia: InTech, 2010), 17–46, doi: 10.5772/10117.

  24. Kurt Mendelsohn, letter to the author, September 27, 1963.

  25. Gor'kov “Microscopic Derivation: (ref. 12); “Theory of Superconducting Alloys” (ref. 12).

  26. John Bardeen, Leon N. Cooper, and John R. Schrieffer, “Theory of Superconductivity,” Physical Review 108 (1957), 1175–204.

  27. Mendelssohn and Moore, “Specific Heat” (ref. 13); “Supra-Conducting Alloys” (ref. 13).

  28. Bruce B. Goodman, “The Magnetic Behavior of Superconductors of Negative Surface Energy,” IBM Journal of Research and Development 6 (1962) 63–67.

  29. Ted G. Berlincourt and Richard R. Hake, “Upper Critical Fields of Transition Metal Alloy Superconductors,” Physical Review Letters 9 (1962), 293–95; “Pulsed-Magnetic-Field Studies of Superconducting Transition Metal Alloys at High and Low Current Densities,” Bulletin of the American Physical Society 7 (1962), 408; “Superconductivity at High Magnetic Fields,” Physical Review 131 (1963), 140–57; Ted G. Berlincourt, “Pulsed Magnetic Field Studies of Superconducting Transition Metal Alloys at High and Low Current Densities,” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Low Temperature Physics (London: Butterworth & Co. 1964) 338–41.

  30. Volker Heine and Alfred B. Pippard, “The Knight Shift in Superconductors,” Philosophical Magazine 3 (1958), 1046–50.

  31. Albert M. Clogston, “Upper Limit for the Critical Field in Hard Superconductors,” Physical Review Letters 9 (1962), 266–67.

  32. Berlincourt and Hake, “Upper Critical Fields” (ref. 29).

  33. Walter J. Tomasch and Alfred S. Joseph, “Experimental Evidence for a New Superconducting Phase Nucleation Field in Type-II Superconductors,” Physical Review Letters 12 (1964), 148–50.

  34. D. Saint-James and Pierre G. de Gennes, “Onset of Superconductivity in Decreasing Fields,” Physics Letters 7 (1963), 306–8.

  35. D. Cribier, B. Farnoux, B. Jacrot, L. Madhav Rao, B. Vivet, and M. Antonini, “Neutron Diffraction by Vortex Lines in Superconducting Niobium,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Magnetism, Nottingham September 1964 (London, The Institute of Physics and The Physical Society, 1964), 285–87.

  36. U. Essmann and H. Trauble, “The Direct Observation of Individual Flux Lines in Type II Superconductors,” Physics Letters 24A (1967), 526–27.

  37. Berlincourt and Hake, “Pulsed-Magnetic-Field Studies” (ref. 29); “Superconductivity at High Magnetic Fields” (ref. 29).

  38. James B. Vetrano and Roger W. Boom, “High Critical Current Superconducting Titanium-Niobium Alloy,” Journal of Applied Physics 36 (1965), 1179–80.

  39. John R. Purcell, “The 1.8 Tesla, 4.8 M I.D. Bubble Chamber Magnet,” in Proceedings of the 1968 Summer Study on Superconducting Devices and Accelerators, Brookhaven National Laboratory (Brookhaven: Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1968) 765–85.

  40. Horst Rogalla and Peter H. Kes, eds., 100 Years of Superconductivity (Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2012), 648–49.

  41. Johannes Georg Bednorz and Karl Alex Muller, “Possible High Tc Superconductivity in the Ba-La-Cu-O System,” Zeitschrift fur Physik-Condensed Matter B64 (1986), 189–93.

  42. “Market” (ref. 2).

  43. Alfred B. Pippard, “The Historical Context of Josephson’s Discovery,” in Superconductor Applications: SQUIDS and Machines, B. B. Schwartz and S. Foner, eds. (New York: Plenum Press, 1977), 1–20, on 20.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 5555 Montgomery Drive #97, Santa Rosa, CA, 95409, USA

    T. G. Berlincourt

Authors
  1. T. G. Berlincourt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to T. G. Berlincourt.

Additional information

T. G. Berlincourt’s past affiliations include the Naval Research Laboratory, Atomics International, Colorado State University, the Office of Naval Research, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Berlincourt, T.G. Superconducting Niobium-Titanium: Enabler for Affordable MRI and the Search for the Higgs Boson. Phys. Perspect. 17, 334–353 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-015-0172-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-015-0172-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation