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Nature Physics 4, 16–17 (1 January 2008) | doi:10.1038/nphys823

Superconductivity: Beyond convention

Didier Poilblanc

For high-temperature superconductors, results from more refined experiments on better-quality samples are issuing fresh challenges to theorists. It could be that a new state of matter is at play, with unconventional excitations. Although copper-oxide superconductors share with conventional superconductors the remarkable property of offering no resistance to the flow of electricity, their characteristic critical temperatures (Tc) below which this happens can be as high as 135 K. In fact, these materials belong to the emerging class of so-called strongly correlated systems — a class of materials whose list is rapidly growing.