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Condensed-matter physics

The pnictide code

Nature volume 457, pages 546–547 (2009)Cite this article

Hopes are that the emergent family of iron-based superconductors, the pnictides, could act as a Rosetta stone in decoding the two-decade mystery of superconductivity observed at high temperatures.

About a year ago, the announcement of the discovery1 of a new family of superconductors made from iron-based compounds prompted an army of physicists and chemists to study these pnictides. But what caused — and is perpetuating — this frenzy? The quest for a higher transition temperature, Tc (the temperature above which no superconductivity is attained), stalled2 at a meagre 56 kelvin, and the focus of the excitement has shifted: it is now hoped that the pnictides will be instrumental in deciphering the 22-year-old mystery behind high-Tc superconductivity in cuprates3 (compounds containing copper oxide). There are also compelling reasons to believe that pnictides share the main properties of cuprates. In this issue, two studies (Yuan et al.4 on page 565 and Zabolotnyy et al.5 on page 569) report observations of two features in the pnictides that further elucidate how the two families of superconductors compare.

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  1. Jan Zaanen is at the Instituut Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University, PO Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands. jan@lorentz.leidenuniv.nl ,

    Jan Zaanen

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  1. Jan Zaanen
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Zaanen, J. The pnictide code. Nature 457, 546–547 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/457546a

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