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High-temperature superconductivity

The secret of the hourglass

Nature volume 471, pages 314–316 (2011)Cite this article

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The finding that a cobalt oxide insulator's magnetism is similar to that of cuprate superconductors lends support to the popular but contentious idea that stripe-like electronic order is present in the latter materials. See Letter p.341

One hundred years after its discovery, superconductivity is still an active field of research. On page 341 of this issue, Boothroyd et al.1 describe experimental results on an insulating material that offer insight into the physics of one of the most intriguing families of superconductors — the copper oxides, or cuprates.

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Figure 1: The hourglass magnetic spectrum.

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  1. Jan Zaanen is at the Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands.,

    Jan Zaanen

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  1. Jan Zaanen
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Correspondence to Jan Zaanen.

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Zaanen, J. The secret of the hourglass. Nature 471, 314–316 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/471314a

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