Superconductivity

Stephen Blundell did his undergraduate degree in Physics and Theoretical Physics at Peterhouse, Cambridge and his Ph. D. in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. He moved to the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford to take up an SERC research fellowship, followed by a Junior Research Fellowship at Merton College, where he began research in organic magnets and superconductors using muon-spin rotation. In 1997 he was appointed to a University Lectureship in the Physics Department and a Tutorial Fellowship at Mansfield College, Oxford, and was subsequently promoted to Reader and then Professor. He was a joint winner of the Daiwa-Adrian Prize in 1999 for his work on organic magnets. He has previously published Magnetism in Condensed Matter, (OUP 2001); and Concepts in Thermal Physics, (OUP 2006, with K.M. Blundell).

• 1. What is superconductivity? ; 2. The quest for low temperatures ; 3. The discovery of superconductivity ; 4. Expulsion ; 5. Pairing up ; 6. Symmetry ; 7. Before the breakthrough ; 8. High-temperature superconductivity ; 9. The making of the new superconductors ; 10. What have superconductors ever done for us? ; Dramatis personae ; Further Reading ; Index