Superconductor radiation shielding

[Winter Man]

So I had a thought the other day. Superconductors exhibit the Meissner effect which excludes the magnetic field from their interior. Moving charged particles generate a magnetic field. Would a superconductor 'exclude' charged particles that tried to move through it, e.g. high energy cosmic rays?

[phoenix_ca]

Probably, yes.

[Winter Man]

Hmm. Could make for some good satellite chassis coating, then.

[Dodgey]

Just need a superconductor that doesn't need to be supercooled first, I only wish I will live to witness that day.

[Winter Man]

Well, they've been reported up to 70something C, just not in bulk. So we're getting there.

[Dodgey]

Ok I need a source for that, not only because I'm skeptical but also because I really hope that is true. Don't take that as I don't trust you.

[Winter Man]

Well it's Joe Eck, so take it with a pinch of salt (his 'Meissner transition' could easily be noise if you weren't looking for it), but it seems to warrant further investigation.

http://www.superconductors.org/77C.htm

He does provide actual instruction on how to reproduce, though.

[Dodgey]

When it isn't 12:30 in the morning I'll have a look at it, thanks for that.

[Steel]

Well, they've been reported up to 70something C, just not in bulk. So we're getting there.

I think its probably more like -70 something C

[ZetaX]

He linked a page claiming +70°C, but I cannot find any other source for this. So it has a pretty good chance to be just crankery.

[Winter Man]

Well the guys over at talk-polywell seem to take him relatively seriously, but I only lurk there so I posted the question here.

[K^2]

Superconductors aren't my area, but my department has good condensed matter people. I can ask around to see if there have been any serious breakthroughs with HTSCs.

But in either case, SCs would make for very poor shielding. The problem is that they only shield up to a critical field strength. There are some cryogenic SCs that can hold a strong mag field at 2K or so, and that's what they use in accelerators, but HTSCs are crap at it without exception. A high energy charged particle will exceede critical fields locally, force a transition to normal state, and just keep going. SC will probably provide better shielding than same material in normal, non-superconducting state, but not by enough. Your best bet in shielding from charged particles is still Compton Scattering, and that just scales with density. So grab a chunk of led, or depleted uranium if you can afford it, and build your shielding out of that. (Now that is my area.)