Superconducting materials: What the record tells us

Abstract

We argue that the materials which appear to maximize the superconducting transition temperature can be regarded as living at the interface between chemistry and physics.

†In honour of James L. Smith's 65th birthday.

Acknowledgements

ZF thanks V. Zlatic and R. B. Laughlin for discussions on this topic and NSF-DMR-0710492 for support. Work at Los Alamos was performed under the auspices of the US DOE/Office of Science.

Notes

†In honour of James L. Smith's 65th birthday.

Note

1. According to Zürich folklore, it was Pauli who claimed that if the coupling to the lattice played a decisive role in superconductivity, a T _c above 30 K was unlikely owing to the stability of the lattice. Unfortunately, there is no evidence in the literature which could be cited. At the same time, in the early 1950s, he suggested pressure experiments to test Fröhlich's scheme.