Liquid Superconductors: Experiments and Possibilities

[bwana]

As described here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112748702/abstract

All superconductors are solids in their superconducting state, this state of matter presently having only been observed well below the melting temperature of the solid. The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates,bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide, BSCCO and yttrium barium copper oxide, YBCO point to the possibility that superconductors with a high superconducting transition temperature may not be conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductors. The highest temperature superconductor to date is mercury thallium barium calcium copper oxide (Hg12Tl3Ba30Ca30Cu45O125) superconducts at 135 deg kelvin (liquid nitrogen is 77 deg kelvin). The Meissner effect fails with Abrikosov vortices forming aroung non-superconducting channels in the material. While BCS superconductors exist in the solid state, the only exception known is metallic liquid hydrogen at ultrahigh pressures.

Some have argued that a superconducting charged Bose liquid may be found in a true liquid state of condensed matter at ambient pressure.

One experimental scenario outlined in fluid metal-ammonia solutions for stabilizing and observing a high-temperature superconducting liquid (ca. 230 K).

Does anyone here have any knowledge (preferably first or second hand from an experimental source) about liquid superconductors?

 

[Josh Kassulke]

I have no first hand experience, nor do I have a background in the field. I do however have a great interest in the subject and have wondered for some time now what effects it would have on some of these superconducting liquids if they were put into rotation before super cooling and or placed in a vacuum before cooling.

 

[DrDu]

The simplest models of standard BCS superconductors treat the metal as "jellium", which may as well be liquid as solid.
Superconductivity has been observed in metallic glasses. A glass is basically a liquid with a very high viscosity.