Talk:High-temperature superconductor

The crystal structure of hi Tc materials are all of the form RR'Cu204, where R and R' are rare earth metals, such as yttrium and barium, or lathnanum and strontium, or barium or strontium. The copper and the oxygen exist two dimensional planes separated by the rare earth metals. The beleif is that it is the copper oxygen planes that are responsible for the superconductivity. The Tc's are of the order or 100 Kelvin at optimal doping. Doping is the removal of electrons from the copper oxygen planes by chemical substitution of the rare earth metals. The "parent compounds" (that is, the stoichiometric compounds before doping) are all magnetically ordered in a state known as "antiferromagnetic", where the electron spins alternate on neighbouring copper atoms. Lanthinum and strontium hi-tc compounds have lower Tc's than yttrium and barium or barium and strontium compouds.

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Might be nice to have a table with the currently known materials and their Tc's.

And maybe a bit about the crystal structure?

I'll try to write something if I get a chance.

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This page should be merged with High-temperature superconductivity 220.244.224.10 00:36, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)