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Superconductivity

The ghost of magnetism

Nature volume 394, pages 22–23 (1998)Cite this article

In ‘conventional’ superconductivity, electrons form superconducting Cooper pairs though an attraction mediated by lattice vibrations. Are any other pairing mechanisms possible? As well as having intrinsic physical interest, such mechanisms might allow much higher transition temperatures. But the phenomena of superconductivity are remarkably independent of the actual mechanism, so it is only through indirect methods that we can uncover the forces at work. Nevertheless, Mathur et al. (reporting on page 39 of this issue1) have inferred that a magnetic pairing mechanism operates in two materials.

The subjects of this study are two heavy-fermion superconductors. These are metallic materials in which the conduction electrons (or ‘dressed’ collective states called quasiparticles) have acquired very large effective masses, often hundreds of times that of a free electron. These large masses arise from the interaction of the conduction electrons with localized (generally f-shell) magnetic moments in the materials. When this interaction favours antiparallel alignment of the local and conduction-electron spins, it is possible for the conduction electrons to screen the local magnetic moment, resulting in a non-magnetic state at temperatures below that characterizing the strength of this interaction. The conduction electrons acquire mass from the local moments they screen.

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Figure 1: Sources of superconductivity.

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References

  1. Mathur, N. D. et al. Nature 394, 39–43 (1998).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, 32306, Florida, USA

    Zachary Fisk

  2. the Department of Physics, University of Illinois, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, 61801-3080, Illinois, USA

    David Pines

Authors
  1. Zachary Fisk
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  2. David Pines
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Fisk, Z., Pines, D. The ghost of magnetism. Nature 394, 22–23 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/27779

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