High-temperature superconductivity: An organic perspective


High-temperature superconductivity, discovered in a variety of copper oxide materials, has been known for over 20 years, yet is still poorly understood. For example, unlike conventional superconductors, high-temperature superconductors do not simply transform to a normal metal when heated above the superconducting transition temperature: at these higher temperatures, a form of fluctuating superconductivity is present, as if the material cannot decide whether or not it is a metal or a superconductor.

Arzhang Ardavan and colleagues report similar behaviour in a very different type of material: superconducting organic metals. In this class of metals, these enigmatic fluctuations are most pronounced in samples that are close to being in a very different electronic state — a so-called ’Mott insulator’. Given that the non-superconducting relatives of the high-temperature superconductors are also Mott insulators, these findings suggest that a similar underlying mechanism drives this behaviour in both types of material.

CONTACT

Arzhang Ardavan (University of Oxford, UK)
Tel: +44 1865 272 366; E-mail: arzhang.ardavan@physics.ox.ac.uk