Low-Temperature Properties of Silver

Abstract

Pure silver is used extensively in the preparation of high-temberature supercondictor wires, tapes, films, and other configurations in which the silver not only shields the superconducting material from the surrounding materials, but also provides a degree of flexibility and straing relief, as well as stabilization and low-resistance electrical contact. Silver is relatively expensive, but at this stage of superconductor development, its unique combination of properties seems to offer the only reasonable means of achieving usable lengths of conductor. In this role, the low-temperature (electrical, thermal, magnetic, optical) and mechanical properties of the silver all become important. Here we present a colleciton of properties data extracted from the cryogenic literature and, to the extent possible, selected for reliability.