TMS Northeast Regional Meeting Considers Processing and Applications of High T c Superconductors
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TMS Northeast Regional Meeting Considers Processing and Applications of High Tc Superconductors "Processing and Applications of High Tc Superconductors: Status and Prospects" was the subject of the May 9-11, 1988 Northeast Regional Meeting of The Metallurgical Society (TMS). The meeting was cosponsored by the Materials Research Society and ASM International. With about 200 attendees and Single sessions for two and a half days at Rutgers University (Piscataway, NJ), the meeting had the feeling of a Gordon Conference. It was a pleasure to be able to hear all the papers given and get the füll scope of the program. The Conference Organizing Committee was ably chaired by W. E. Mayo (Rutgers University) and included E. A. Giess (IBM and the MRS representative), M.L. Green (AT&T Bell Laboratories), B. Kear (Rutgers University), J. Lloyd (IBM and the ASM representative), R.S. Polizzotti (Exxon and the TMS New Jersey Chapter chairman), A.S. Rao (University of Cincinnati), and J.B. Watchman (Rutgers University). Support came from the State of New Jersey, Rutgers University Center for Ceramics Research, Exxon Research and Engineering, and IBM Research. Nobel laureate J.R. Schrieffer (University of California, Santa Barbara) started the program with a keynote address covering the development of superconductivity theory. Each of the five sessions of orally presented papers had at least two invited papers. The first half of the meeting was devoted to all aspects of films, and the latter half to characterization, synthesis, and processing of composites (mainly wires), ceramics, and bulk materials. Posters combined with a vendor exposition nicely filled breaks in the formal sessions. The Conference hotel, near the Rutgers University campus, provided modern rooms and produced a good Conference dinner the first night when Dr. A. Schriesheim, director, Argonne National Laboratory, spoke on "Phase Transition from Euphoria to Reality." It was an obviously candid and realistic discussion of the prospects for superconductor technology from an experienced science and engineering manager. A well-established "entry product" is the niobium-titaniumbased superconducting magnet coil in most magnetic resonance imaging units in hospitals around the world. Magnetic levitation, power generators, and special devices (e.g., SQUID amplifiers) pose areas where useful technology could evolve. Mechanical brittleness, environmental corrosion, and critical current limiMRS BULLETIN/JULY1988
tations are problems for the new oxide superconductors, which were almost the only superconductors discussed at this meeting.
Keynote Address Prof. Schrieffer's keynote address ideally set the stage with the theoretical foundation of superconductivity before the more applications-oriented papers began. Since the 1911 discovery of Onnes of zero resistance in metals near absolute zero, the rate of discovery and development of theory has not been rapid. Earlier it was speculated that electrons might even become immobile at extremely low temperatures and resistance would
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