Grurgle-the-Grey wrote:JFP your model of SC relies on Wigner Orbitals. It is possible that you are referring to a Wigner crystal of electrons only,
We must be careful here since I also thought that my orbitals are akin to a "Wigner crystal" of electrons. I only later found out the hard way that Wigner wrote two papers: one on so-called Wigner Crystals, and one on the metal-insulator transition in non-ideal metals. In the latter he derived that localized electron-waves (orbitals) form which can be modeled as electrons performing simple harmonic vibrations through induced positive charges.
This prediction was so well founded that even Nevill Mott commented that it is strange that such a metal-insulator transition has not been observed. The fact is that it
has been observed since 1911, but the "insulating phase" forms a superconductor; and that is why it was not recognized as the transition predicted by Wigner. Therefore I refer to these localized orbitals as "Wigner orbitals; not because they relate to an electron "Wigner Crystal".
These orbitals immediately explain
all the properties of the low temperature metal superconductors, like the isotope effect, without having to invoke "paired electrons"
that you're referring to the orbitals of interstitial atoms which will have a lower work function than the atoms around them.
The orbitals are harmonic electron-orbitals with the electrons (forming them within metals) usually "moving quantum mechanically"
through the induced positive charges: This causes the isotope effect. If the electrons "vibrate" parallel to the positive charges as they are doing in the ceramics and a few of the metals, the isotope effect is suppressed.
This presumably means that there would be a connection between the density of defects and the density of SC charge-carriers, has this been seen in a lab?
The orbitals can be considered as "defects", similar to donor-flaws in an n-type semiconductor. It is for this reason that for the ceramics there is a "doping-effect". There are many measurements on the ceramics that confirm this, however, the main stream guys do not understand what they are seeing.
I'm also intrigued by the idea that there is a connection between the thickness of an SC block and the maximum flux it can absorb, has this been observed?
It is known, and has been illustrated in the lab, that when the so-called "London penetration depth" is larger than the thickness of the superconductor, the superconductor cannot superconduct anymore.