I Is London depth in superconductors analogous to skin depth?

iVenky
Messages
212
Reaction score
12
London penetration depth that's defined for superconductors has a similar equation to skin depth in conductors derived from maxwell's equations. Are they equivalent?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • Like
Likes Demystifier
Yes, from a practical point of view they are somewhat similar.
However, there are not "the same thing"; you can for example not replace the skin depth by the penetration depth when e.g. calculating EM properties.
The EM properties of superconductors at low frequencies (frequencies much lower than the energy of the gap) behave pretty much like perfect conductors from a EM point of view. The main difference (for type II superconductors) is actually presence of a fairly significant kinetic inductance, rather than the penetration depth.
 
I am not sure if this belongs in the biology section, but it appears more of a quantum physics question. Mike Wiest, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Wellesley College in the US. In 2024 he published the results of an experiment on anaesthesia which purported to point to a role of quantum processes in consciousness; here is a popular exposition: https://neurosciencenews.com/quantum-process-consciousness-27624/ As my expertise in neuroscience doesn't reach up to an ant's ear...
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
I am reading WHAT IS A QUANTUM FIELD THEORY?" A First Introduction for Mathematicians. The author states (2.4 Finite versus Continuous Models) that the use of continuity causes the infinities in QFT: 'Mathematicians are trained to think of physical space as R3. But our continuous model of physical space as R3 is of course an idealization, both at the scale of the very large and at the scale of the very small. This idealization has proved to be very powerful, but in the case of Quantum...
Back
Top