In the 1960s, auto company researchers scored this key breakthrough in superconductivity, even though the work had nothing to do with cars
By Ann Johnson
Posted
Photo: Arnold Silver/FordFord’s SQUID Team: The researchers who invented the SQUID were [from left] John Lambe, James Zimmerman, Arnold Silver, Robert Jaklevic, and James Mercereau.
Cooled to a few degrees above absolute zero, a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID, can do something amazing: detect a magnetic field only a millionth as strong as the human brain’s, or less than 5 quintillionths of a tesla.
Measuring such minute magnetic fields turns out to be useful for many things, including geophysical and archeological surveys, detection of the cosmic microwave background, nondestructive testing of materials and devices, and imaging the brain, heart, and other body parts. Invented some 50 years ago, the SQUID now comes in dozens of varieties, with different materials and circuitries, and operating temperatures both high (at the liquid-nitrogen range of around 77 kelvins) and low (less than 10 K, in the realm of liquid helium).
Exquisite though they are, SQUIDs seem to have been invented almost accidentally. During the 1950s and 1960s, industrial and academic labs pursued superconductors with nearly the same zeal they were devoting to semiconductors. Bell Telephone Laboratories, General Electric, IBM, RCA, and Westinghouse all had programs in superconductivity.
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