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The discovery of electron tunneling into superconductors

DEC 01, 1961

DOI: 10.1063/1.3057282

Roland W. Schmitt

In August 1960, Ivar Giaever published a discovery about electron tunneling into superconductors; the discovery was elegant and had the esthetic simplicity that makes a scientist wonder why it had not been made before. It is too early to assess the importance of the discovery; it may be recorded as only a small but neat strand of science, or the train of work it has set off may produce a web of new knowledge about solids. Regardless of the final assessment that science makes of it, the discovery was surrounded by novel circumstances that dramatize the unexpected course of discovery.

References

  1. 1. Giaever, I., Phys. Rev. Letters 5, 147 (1960).https://doi.org/PRLTAO

  2. 2. Goudsmit, S. A., Physics Today, June 1961, p. 18.

  3. 3. Glover, R. E., III and Tinkham, M., Phys. Rev. 108, 243 (1957).https://doi.org/PHRVAO

  4. 4. Fisher, J. C. and Giaever, I., J. Appl. Phys. 32, 172 (1961).https://doi.org/JAPIAU

  5. 5. Nicol, J., Shapiro, S., and Smith, P. H., Phys. Rev. Letters 5, 461 (1960).https://doi.org/PRLTAO

  6. 6. Giaever, I., Phys. Rev. Letters 5, 464 (1960).https://doi.org/PRLTAO

  7. 7. Darwin, Charles, Proc. Roy. Soc. A236, 285 (1956).

More about the Authors

Roland W. Schmitt. General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N.Y..

This Content Appeared In
pt-cover_1961_12.jpeg

Volume 14, Number 12

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