Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Superconductivity

Pebbles in the nodal pond

Nature volume 422, pages 569–570 (2003)Cite this article

Rippling patterns of electron waves in a copper oxide match the expectation for a certain kind of excitation — another step towards understanding why copper oxides superconduct at far higher temperatures than other materials.

Perhaps the first image that comes to mind when thinking about waves is the interference pattern on the surface of a pond after some pebbles are thrown in. According to quantum physics, electrons can behave like waves, and so give rise to similar phenomena: the 'pebbles' are imperfections in the medium, scattering the electron waves, and the 'ripples', or interference fringes, can be seen through a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). On page 592 of this issue, McElroy et al.1 show that such patterns can be used to study the details of a special kind of electron wave — so-called nodal fermions — that occurs in high-temperature superconductors.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Electron waves.

References

  1. McElroy, K. et al. Nature 422, 592–596 (2003).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/stm.html

  3. Orenstein, J. & Millis, A. J. Science 288, 468–474 (2000).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Hoffman, J. E. et al. Science 297, 1148–1151 (2002).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Howald, C., Eisaki, H., Kaneko, N. & Kapitulnik, A. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. (in the press); preprint cond-mat/0201546 at <http://arXiv.org> (2002).

  6. Howald, C., Fournier, P. & Kapitulnik, A. Phys. Rev. B 67, 014533 (2002).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Feng, D. L. et al. Science 289, 277–281 (2000).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Lang, K. M. et al. Nature 415, 412–416 (2002).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Zaanen, J. Nature 415, 379–381 (2002).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Hofmann, J. E. et al. Science 295, 466–469 (2002).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Sachdev, S. & Zhang, S. C. Science 295, 452–454 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Instituut Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University, PO Box 9506, Leiden, 2300 RA, The Netherlands

    Jan Zaanen

Authors
  1. Jan Zaanen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan Zaanen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zaanen, J. Pebbles in the nodal pond. Nature 422, 569–570 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/422569a

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/422569a

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing