Electrodynamics of superconductors

TL;DR

This paper explores the electrodynamics of superconductors, focusing on the Meissner state characterized by zero magnetic induction, resistivity, and entropy, linking these properties to electron pairing and quantum effects.

Contribution

It provides a unified understanding of superconducting properties through the lens of electron quantization and the Meissner state, emphasizing their fundamental origins.

Findings

Properties of the Meissner state are rooted in electron angular momentum quantization.

Superconductivity's phenomena are manifestations of fundamental quantum laws.

Electrodynamics of superconductors explains various equilibrium and non-equilibrium behaviors.

Abstract

Electrodynamics of superconductors is primarily the electrodynamics of the Meissner state, a state characterized by zero magnetic induction of a superconducting fraction of conduction electrons. Simultaneously, the Meissner state is characterized by zero resistivity and zero entropy of these electrons. The latter means that the temperature of an ensemble of superconducting electrons is zero as well. Understanding properties of the Meissner state provides a key to understand and predict these and other equilibrium and non-equilibrium properties of superconductors, e.g., properties of the intermediate and mixed states, flux quantization, resistanceless transport current, etc. The reader will see that all these properties have a single and very simple origin: quantization of the angular momentum of the conduction electrons combined into Cooper pairs, and that the electrodynamics of superconductors and superconductivity as a whole is a magnificent manifestation of the boundless ingenuity of Nature and of the power of Physics laws.