Magnetic Levitation
Levitate magnet — Meissner effect. Builds on Lenz's Law.
You cool a small disk of a special ceramic material (YBCO) below -180°C using liquid nitrogen. Then you place a small permanent magnet above the disk and let go.
What happens to the magnet?
The magnet floats in mid-air! The superconducting disk expels all magnetic field from its interior — the Meissner effect. It acts like a perfect magnetic mirror, creating an image magnet below the surface that repels the real one. Even more remarkably, if you tilt the disk, the magnet tilts with it. You can even turn it upside down and the magnet hangs below, suspended by flux pinning.
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Watch the magnetic field lines being expelled from the superconductor. Notice how the magnet hovers stably. Try tilting the superconductor — the magnet follows! The persistent surface currents create a perfect magnetic shield.
B = 0 (inside superconductor)
Zero field inside isn’t just perfect shielding — it’s active expulsion. Even if you cool the material while it’s already in a field, the field gets pushed out. That’s the Meissner effect.
Japanese SCMaglev trains use superconducting magnets to levitate and propel the train at over 600 km/h. No wheels touch the track at speed — zero friction, zero wear.
Hospital MRI scanners use superconducting coils cooled by liquid helium to create powerful, stable magnetic fields. Once the current is established, it flows forever with zero power consumption.
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN uses thousands of superconducting magnets cooled to 1.9 K to bend and focus particle beams. Conventional magnets couldn’t produce fields strong enough.
Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage stores electricity as current in a superconducting coil. The current flows indefinitely with no loss, providing instant power when needed.
“Cool a material below its critical temperature and it becomes a perfect magnetic mirror — expelling all flux, levitating magnets, and carrying current forever. Superconductivity is quantum mechanics you can see with your eyes.”
Levitation Lab
Explore magnetic levitation with superconductors and normal conductors. See the Meissner effect in action, adjust temperatures through the critical transition, and compare superconductor levitation (permanent) with normal conductor levitation (decaying).
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Start above the critical temperature — the magnet falls. Now cool below T_c and watch the field get expelled and the magnet rise. Tilt the superconductor — the magnet follows due to flux pinning! Switch to a normal conductor: the magnet hovers briefly then slowly sinks as eddy currents decay. Adjust the magnet strength — stronger magnet, higher levitation height.
Superconductors achieve stable levitation through two effects: the Meissner effect (complete flux expulsion) provides the repulsive force, and flux pinning in Type II superconductors locks the magnet in place. Normal conductors can only provide temporary levitation because their eddy currents decay due to resistance.