Type H superconductors and the vortex lattice.
Superconducting material is used, for example, in magnetic resonance imaging for medical examinations and particle accelerators in physics. Knowledge about superfluid liquids can give us deeper insight into the ways in which matter behaves in its lowest and most ordered state. Work by the author on superconduction in liquid helium established the existence of type II superconductors and proved that vortex lattices exist in superfluid helium, in the presence of magnetic fields. He showed that the Ginzburg-Landau theory could be extended to include this "new" type of superconductors, which today are in common use. His work on phase transitions of these superconductors under the influence of magnetic fields was groundbreaking, although he has worked in many other areas since then. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 2003 "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids" with V L. Ginzburg and A. J. Leggett.
Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Agonne, IL 60439, USA. abrikosov@anl.gov
Alexei A
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Abrikosov