The complete
microscopictheory of superconductivitywas finally
proposed in 1957 by Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer. This BCStheoryexplained thesuperconductingcurrent as a superfluid
of Cooper pairs, pairs of electrons interacting through the
exchange of phonons.
In 1950, the
phenomenological Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity
was devised by Landau and
Ginzburg.[25]This
theory, which combined Landau's theory of second-order phase
transitions with a
Schrödinger-like wave equation,
had great success in explaining the macroscopic properties of
superconductors. In particular, Abrikosov showed that
Ginzburg–Landau theory predicts the division of superconductors
into the two categories now referred to as Type I and Type
II.