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High-temperature superconductivity

Research enters a new phase

Nature volume 398, pages 193–194 (1999)Cite this article

“The only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money”, Molly Colum once remarked to Ernest Hemingway. Is the only difference between cuprate (copper-oxide) superconductors and conventional materials the high value of the superconducting transition temperature T c, or do they exhibit fundamentally new physics? The work of Corson and collaborators reported on page 221 of this issue1 opens a new experimental window onto this fascinating issue, by showing that it is possible to measure the short-time phase-coherence properties of high-T cmaterials.

The technical achievements of this paper are remarkable. Corson and collaborators have measured the frequency-dependent conductivity, which relates the alternating currents flowing in the superconductor to an applied alternating electric field. They have obtained data in the frequency range of 100-600 GHz, which has hitherto been difficult to access because it is uncomfortably high for conventional microwave measurements and uncomfortably low for conventional optical experiments. Corson et al. 1 have developed the coherent time-domain spectroscopy technique pioneered by the groups of Auston and Grischkowsky2 into a powerful tool for probing this interesting but inconvenient frequency range. In this technique the conductivity is determined from the way in which an electric field pulse is distorted as it propagates through a material. High quality thin-film samples are also essential, and these have recently become available following the success of Eckstein and Bozovic at using the molecular beam epitaxy techniques, familiar from semiconductor processing, to grow transition metal oxides3.

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Figure 1: Phase stiffness ρsas a function of temperature at frequencies of 100 GHz (triangles) and 600 GHz (diamonds) as determined by Corson et al. 1.
Figure 2: Photoemission spectrum.

References

  1. Corson, J., Mallozzi, R., Orenstein, J., Eckstein, J. N. & Bozovic, I. Nature 398, 221–223 (1999).

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  3. Eckstein, J. N. & Bozovic, I. Annu. Rev. Mater. Sci. 25, 679–709 (1995).

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  1. the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, 08854, New Jersey, USA

    A. J. Millis

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  1. A. J. Millis
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Millis, A. Research enters a new phase. Nature 398, 193–194 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18311

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