The discovery of the supercurrent in SNS contacts is sometimes mistakenly attributed to what Welsh theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Cambridge?
Proximity effect (superconductivity) Proximity effect or Holm-Meissner effect is a term used in the field of superconductivity to describe phenomena that occur when a superconductor (S) is placed in contact with a "normal" (N) non-superconductor. Typically the critical temperature formula_1 of the superconductor is suppressed and signs of weak superconductivity are observed in the normal material over mesoscopic distances. The proximity effect is known since the pioneering work by R. Holm and W. Meissner. They have observed zero resistance in SNS pressed contacts, in which two superconducting metals are separated by a thin film of a non-superconducting (i.e. normal) metal. The discovery of the supercurrent in SNS contacts is sometimes mistakenly attributed to Brian Josephson's 1962 work, yet the effect was known long before his publication and was understood as the proximity effect.
Aharon Kapitulnik Aharon Kapitulnik is an Israeli-American physicist, focusing in strongly correlated electron systems, low dimensional electronic systems, unconventional superconductors, topological superconductors, superconductivity and magnetism, transport in bad metals and precision measurements, currently the Theodore and Sydney Rosenberg Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University and is an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and American Physical Society. In 2014, he was awarded the Sackler Professorship at Tel Aviv University.