This book is devoted to superconductivity, which is one of the most interesting problems in physics. In accordance with the outline of the book, it treats the key problems in the field of superconductivity, in particular, it discusses the mechanism(s) of superconductivity. This book is useful for researchers and graduate students in the fields of solid state physics, quantum field theory, and many-body theory.

Theory of Superconductivity is primarily intended to serve as a background for reading the literature in which detailed applications of the microscopic theory of superconductivity are made to specific problems.

Thin films have an extremely broad range of applications from electronics and optics to new materials and devices. Collaborative and multidisciplinary efforts from physicists, materials scientists, engineers and others have established and advanced a field with key pillars constituting (i) the synthesis and processing of thin films, (ii) the understanding of physical properties in relation to the nanometer scale, (iii) the design and fabrication of nano-devices or devices with thin film materials as building blocks, and (iv) the design and construction of novel tools for characterization of thin films.Against the backdrop of the increasingly interdisciplinary field, this book sets off to inform the basics of thin film physics and thin film devices. Readers are systematically introduced to the synthesis, processing and application of thin films; they will also study the formation of thin films, their structure and defects, and their various properties — mechanical, electrical, semiconducting, magnetic, and superconducting. With a primary focus on inorganic thin film materials, the book also ventures on organic materials such as self-assembled monolayers and Langmuir-Blodgett films.This book will be effective as a teaching or reference material in the various disciplines, ranging from Materials Science and Engineering, Electronic Science and Engineering, Electronic Materials and Components, Semiconductor Physics and Devices, to Applied Physics and more. The original Chinese publication has been instrumental in this purpose across many Chinese universities and colleges.

Aimed at graduate students and researchers, this book covers the key aspects of the modern quantum theory of solids, including up-to-date ideas such as quantum fluctuations and strong electron correlations. It presents in the main concepts of the modern quantum theory of solids, as well as a general description of the essential theoretical methods required when working with these systems. Diverse topics such as general theory of phase transitions, harmonic and anharmonic lattices, Bose condensation and superfluidity, modern aspects of magnetism including resonating valence bonds, electrons in metals, and strong electron correlations are treated using unifying concepts of order and elementary excitations. The main theoretical tools used to treat these problems are introduced and explained in a simple way, and their applications are demonstrated through concrete examples.

This text deals with the behaviour of superconductors in external fields varying in time, and with transport phenomena in superconductors.

This book presents a complete encyclopedia of superconducting fluctuations, summarising the last thirty-five years of work in the field. The first part of the book is devoted to an extended discussion of the Ginzburg-Landau phenomenology of fluctuations in its thermodynamical and time-dependent versions and its various applications. The second part deals with microscopic justification of the Ginzburg-Landau approach and presents the diagrammatic theory of fluctuations. The third part is devoted to a less-detailed review of the manifestation of fluctuations in observables: diamagnetism, magnetoconductivity, various tunneling characteristics, thermoelectricity, and NMR relaxation. The final chapters turn to the manifestation of fluctuations in unconventional superconducting systems: nanodrops, nanorings, Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless state, quantum phase transition between superconductor and insulator, and thermal and quantum fluctuations in weak superconducting systems. The book ends with a brief discussion on theories of high temperature superconductivity, where fluctuations appear as the possible protagonist of this exciting phenomenon.

This book puts forward a modern classification theory for superconducting gap nodes, whose structures can be observed by experiments and are essential for understanding unconventional superconductivity. In the first part of the book, the classification method, based on group theory and K theory, is introduced in a step-by-step, pedagogical way. In turn, the latter part presents comprehensive classification tables, which include various nontrivial gap (node) structures, which are not predicted by the Sigrist-Ueda method, but are by the new method. The results obtained here show that crystal symmetry and/or angular momentum impose critical constraints on the superconducting gap structures. Lastly, the book lists a range of candidate superconductors for the nontrivial gap nodes. The classification methods and tables presented here offer an essential basis for further investigations into unconventional superconductivity. They indicate that previous experimental studies should be reinterpreted, while future experiments should reflect the new excitation spectrum.