Ginzburg-Landau phenomenology: its role in the modern theory of superconductivity and studies of nanograin properties

摘要

The phenomenon of superconductivity is one of the important achievements of condensed-matter physics of the twentieth century. Between its discovery by Kamerling-Onnes in 1911 and the formulation in 1957 of the corresponding microscopic theory almost half a century passed. Let us remind that the creation of the theory of superfluidity in liquid helium took only four years. First theories of superconductivity were phenomenological. So in 1934 brothers F. and H. London wrote down the equations for the electrodynamics of a superconductor which explained the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect: complete expulsion of the magnetic flux from bulk superconductor . This discovery was especially important in superconductivity and namely this effect demonstrated that superconductivity is a new state of matter. In 1936 Landau and Peierls created the theory of intermediate state. Soon Landau formulated his theory of the second-order phase transitions.