Edit Proposal: Milestone-Proposal:High Temperature Superconductivity

Thank you for proposing a technical achievement for possible recognition as an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing. Your efforts help preserve the heritage of technology. Detailed information on the Milestone application process may be found at: Milestone Guidelines and How to Propose a Milestone. At least one of the proposer(s) must be an IEEE Member (including Student Member) in good standing.

To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation? If the answer is "yes", the proposal cannot proceed further. Yes No

You must be able to answer "yes" to all of the following questions. If the answer to any of the following questions is "no", the proposal cannot proceed further.

Contact us at ieee-history@ieee.org if you are unable to answer "yes" to all of the following and would still like to proceed.

Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes No

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes No

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes No

Was it of at least regional importance? Yes No

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes No

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes No

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes No

Has the owner of the site given permission to place an IEEE plaque? Yes No

Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred: 1987

Title of the proposed milestone. (Include date or date range in title. Example: “Alternating Current Electrification, 1886”)

High-Temperature Superconductivity, 1987

Please provide a plaque citation in English summarizing the achievement and its significance. Text absolutely limited by plaque dimensions to 70 words; 60 is preferable for aesthetic reasons. NOTE: The IEEE History Committee shall have final determination on the wording of the citation. For more information and suggestions about writing milestone citations, please visit Helpful Hints on Citations, Plaque Locations.

High-Temperature Superconductivity, 1987 On this site in 1987, yttrium-barium-copper-oxide, YBa2Cu3O7, the first material to exhibit superconductivity at temperatures above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen (77k), was discovered. This ushered in an era of accelerated superconductor materials science and engineering research worldwide, and led to advanced applications of superconductivity in energy, medicine, communications, and transportation.

In what IEEE section(s) will the milestone plaque(s) reside? Region 5 Houston Section

Please specify the IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone, and supply name and contact information for the senior officer from those OU(s). Sponsorship has three aspects: 1) Payment for the cost of the plaque(s), 2) Arranging the dedication ceremony, and 3) agreeing to monitor the plaque and to let IEEE History Center staff know in case the plaque needs to be moved, is no longer secure, etc. Number 3 must be done by the IEEE Section(s) in which the plaque(s) is located, but aspects 1 and 2 can be done by any IEEE Organizational Unit, and they need not be the same one. Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates of the intended milestone plaque site(s). Please include coordinates in decimal format rather than degrees.

Science and Research Building 1, University of Houston Closest street address: 3577 Cullen Blvd., Houston TX 77004 GPS coordinates: +29° 43' 21.9318", -95° 20' 42.4968"

What is the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s) relation to the achievement? The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Also, please Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). (e.g. Is it corporate buildings? Historic Site? Residential? Are there other historical markers already at the site?)

The YBCO compound was first synthesized and tested for superconductivity in this building.

Are the original buildings extant?

yes

Please provide the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc.

The plaque will be mounted on a wall in the ground floor entrance hall

How is the intended plaque site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public? If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give details as well as the contact information visitors will need in order to arrange to visit the plaque.

The intended plaque site is on the University of Houston campus, which is protected by the UH Department of Public Safety (Police Department, Security Services, and Fire Marshal). The building in which the plaque will be installed is locked during non-business hours. The intended plaque site is accessible to the public during University business hours, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday - Friday, excluding University holidays. Visitors will not need to go through security, make an appointment, or contact anyone in order to visit the plaque during business hours.

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

The University of Houston

In the space below, please describe in detail:

• the historic significance of the achievement,
• its importance to the evolution of electrical and computer engineering and science,
• its importance to regional/national/international development,
• its benefits to humanity,
• the ways the achievement was a significant advance rather than an incremental

improvement of existing technology.

The material submitted here will constitute the main descriptive article on the ETHW website for readers to learn about the milestone. Space is unlimited, and detail is encouraged. Most milestones require 1000 to 1500 words of support, however there is no word limit. The article should be readable by a wide audience that includes practicing engineers, scholars of history, and the general public. Some examples of the text of good milestone articles are First Radio Astronomical Observations Using Very Long Baseline Interferometry] and G3_Facsimile International Standardization of G3 Facsimile (Do not worry about the formatting of the page, IEEE History Center Staff will do that afterwards.)

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)?

January 2012 marked the 25th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity above the liquid-nitrogen temperature by Paul C.W. Chu and coworkers at the University of Houston[1]. Breaking the liquid nitrogen temperature barrier of critical temperature is a great milestone in the journey toward room temperature superconductivity, and is an impressive achievement in modern science. This discovery made application possibilities cost-effective, practical and closer to consumer needs to a degree never imagined before. As one of the great achievements of the century, this invention was invited as a contribution to the White House National Millennium Time Capsule at the National Archives in 2000 [2]. Paul Chu was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1988 [3]. Superconductors differ from usual conductors fundamentally in how electrons and therefore electric currents, transport in them, giving rise to performance benefits. Exceptional properties resulting in performance benefits include zero DC resistance (very low resistance at high frequencies), very high current carrying density, and very low signal dispersion, exclusion of magnetic fields, and very high sensitivity to magnetic fields when put in the superconducting quantum interference device configuration. Zero resistance and high current density have major importance in high efficient power transmission and have technological benefits, for example in powerful electromagnets and powerful miniature motors. High sensitivity of superconductors to magnetic fields has made superior sensing applications possible, and magnetic field exclusion has made superconducting levitation a possibility. Further, superconductivity has made high speed computing and signal transmission possible that is well beyond the theoretical limit reachable by the semiconductor technology. Prior to 1987, all superconducting materials had lower critical temperatures (Tc’s) and therefore functioned only at temperatures near the boiling point of liquid helium (4.2 K) or liquid hydrogen (20.28 K), with the highest being Nb3Ge at 23 K. This made refrigeration used to cool the material to below the critical temperature extremely costly and technologically challenging, limiting superconducting applications only to specialized critical needs. Inspired by the work of Georg Bednorz and Karl Mueller on high temperature superconductivity (HTS), Paul Chu and his associates at the University of Houston discovered in 1987 that YBCO (Yttrium1- Barium2-Copper3-Oxygen7) and iso-structural RBCO (Rare-earth1-Barium2-Copper3-Oxygen7) have a Tc of 93 K. Paul Chu’s group holds the current Tc-record of 164 K in the mercury barium based cuprate superconductor under pressure.[4] Their work led to a rapid succession of new high temperature superconducting materials, ushering in a new era in material science, chemistry and technology. YBCO was the first material to become superconducting above 77 K, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen, and marked the beginning of the discovery of a series of high temperature superconducting materials. Aside from being the first liquid nitrogen high temperature superconductor, YBCO possesses superior superconducting and physical properties to those of current high temperature superconductors. Among numerous application possibilities [5], YBCO receiver coils in NMR-spectrometers have improved the resolution NMR spectrometers by a factor of 3 compared to that achievable with conventional coils. YBCO coated conductor tapes of length have been produced by depositing YBCO on flexible metal tapes with buffer oxide layers that can have significant applications in power generation, transmission and storage. Advances in high temperature superconductors in general promise more compact, less costly and superior MRI-imaging, Magneto- Encephalography (MEG), Magnetic Source Imaging (MSI) and Magnetocardiography (MCG), noninvasive diagnostics. Use of high temperature superconductors in industry is expected to reduce power consumption significantly, and use of powerful HTS magnets in water remediation, material purification and industrial processing are being demonstrated. HTS filters are already widespread in cellular communication systems. Today continuing research and development in HTS could lead to new technologies ranging from clean abundant energy from nuclear fusion, to advanced medical technology, to computing at speeds faster than ever before.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?

What features set this work apart from similar achievements?

Significant references to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. The full reference, in English, must be uploaded, not just the citation. See below section for details on uploading material to the website.

[1] M. K. Wu, J. R. Ashburn, C. J. Torng, P. H. Hor, R. L. Meng, L. Gao, Z. J. Huang, Y. Q. Wang, and C. W. Chu (1987). "Superconductivity at 93 K in a New Mixed Phase Y-Ba-Cu-O Compound System at Ambient Pressure,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 58 (9): 9089 (1987); P. H. Hor, R. L. Meng, Y. Q. Wang, L. Gao, Z. J. Huang, J. Bechtold, K. Forster and C. W. Chu, “Superconductivity above 90 K in the Square-Planar Compound System YBa2Cu3O7 with A = Y, La, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Ho, Er and Lu,” Phys. Rev. Lett, 58, 1891 (1987). [2] National Millennium Time Capsule, http://clinton4.nara.gov/Initiatives/Millennium/capsule/alpha_medallist.html http://clinton4.nara.gov/Initiatives/Millennium/capsule/index.html [3] National Science Foundation - The President's National Medal of Science 1988, http://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.cfm?recip_id=77 [4] L. Gao, Y. Y. Xue, F. Chen, Q. Xiong, R. L. Meng, D. Ramirez, C. W. Chu, J. H. Eggert and H. K. Mao, “Superconductivity up to 164 K in HgBa2Can-1CunO2n+2-δ (n = 1, 2 and 3) under QUASI-Hydrostatic Pressures,” Phys. Rev. B, (Rapid Communications) 50, 4260 (1994). [5] Booklet, Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications (2008), Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors (CCAS) and IEEE Council on Superconductivity (IEEE CSC), 35 pages (2008). See http://www.ccas-web.org/superconductivity/overview/ U.S. Patent 7,056,866, “Superconductivity in square-planar compound systems,” C. W. Chu, filed March 26, 1987; awarded June 6, 2006

Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC) which can be made publicly available on the IEEE History Center’s website (i.e. unencumbered by copyright, or with the copyright holder’s permission). All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. Images and photographs are especially appreciated, however, it is necessary that you list the copyright owner for these and obtain the copyright owner’s permission to reuse. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information. To add attachments, first upload the file and add by adding the text [[Media:(filename)]] - if the file you uploaded was named "Milestone Reference.pdf", include the text [[Media:Milestone Reference.pdf]] in the appropriate field.

Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).

Submit this proposal to the IEEE History Committee for review. Only check this when the proposal is finished

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