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Nature Physics 5, 87–88 (1 February 2009) | doi:10.1038/nphys1192

Iron-based superconductors: Timing is crucial

Warren E. Pickett

One of the first questions to be asked when a new superconductor is discovered is how do its electrons become bound to form Cooper pairs, which cooperatively result in the emergence of the superconducting state? This question is usually also the last to be answered. Indeed, it took nearly fifty years after the discovery of superconductivity itself to establish the role taken by phonons in mediating the pair-binding mechanism in conventional superconductors.