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Nature 424, 625-626 (7 August 2003) | doi:10.1038/424625a

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Superconductivity: Lifting the gossamer veil

Piers Coleman1

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Copper oxides become superconductors at much higher temperatures than conventional metals. This transition might involve a state of 'gossamer' superconductivity, and new work shows how.

One of the outstanding mysteries in condensed-matter physics is that the most perfect conductors so far discovered — the high-temperature superconductors — are more like insulators than metals. Superconductivity, the flow without resistance of current through some materials, usually only occurs at very low temperatures.

  1. Center for Materials Theory, Rutgers University, 136 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8019, USA.
    Email: coleman@physics.rutgers.edu