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Superconductivity

An analogue of superfluid 3He

Nature volume 396, pages 627–628 (1998)Cite this article

Two letters to Nature1,2 published in the past few months, and one in this issue3 (page 658), report experiments that uniquely specify the unconventional superconductivity in strontium ruthenate (Sr2RuO4). They establish that it conforms to long-held views on how superconductivity driven by electron-electron (rather than electron-phonon) interactions should behave. These developments contrast with the heated debates that have swirled for a decade around the high-temperature copper oxide superconductors. Yet there are many similarities in the underlying electronic structures of the ruthenates and the copper oxides.

Shortly after the Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer (BCS) theory of conventional electron-phonon-driven superconductivity appeared in 1957, Kohn and Luttinger4 proposed a generalization to electron-electron interactions. The BCS theory starts from a normal metallic state with its ‘Fermi liquid’ of mobile electrons, with their interactions well described by the perturbative Landau theory. As the temperature is lowered an effective attraction between the electrons near the Fermi level arises from the exchange of phonons, or lattice vibrations, which grows in strength and overcomes the Coulomb repulsion. This net attraction binds two electrons to form an isotropic spin-singlet Cooper pair in a state of zero angular momentum (that is, s-wave). The origin of superconductivity is the condensation of the centre of mass motion of these pairs to form a coherent quantum state.

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  1. the Institut für Theoretische Physik, ETH-Hönggerberg, CH-8093, Zürich, Switzerland

    Maurice Rice

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  1. Maurice Rice
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Rice, M. An analogue of superfluid 3He. Nature 396, 627–628 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/25241

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