Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths: High Temperature Rare Earths Superconductors - I (Volume 30) (Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths, Volume 30)

The rare earths play a unique role in science. These seventeen related elements afford a panoply of subtle variations deriving from the systematic development of their electronic configurations, allowing a test of theory with excellent resolution. In contrast they find widespread use in even the most mundane processes such as steel making, for polishing materials and gasoline cracking catalysts. In between are exotic uses such as TV screen phosphors, lasers, high strength permanent magnets and chemical probes. This multi-volume handbook covers the entire rare earth field in an integrated manner. Each chapter is a comprehensive up-to-date, critical review of a particular segment of the field. The work offers the researcher and graduate student alike, a complete and thorough coverage of this fascinating field. This volume of the Handbook is the first of a two-volume set of reviews devoted to the rare-earth-based high-temperature oxide superconductors (commonly known as hiTC superconductors). The history of hiTC superconductors is a few months short of being 14 years old when Bednorz and Müller published their results which showed that (La,BA)2CuO4 had a superconducting transition of ~30 K, which was about 7K higher than any other known superconducting material. Within a year the upper temperature limit was raised to nearly 100K with the discovery of an ~90K superconducting transition in YBa2Cu3O7-&dgr;. The announcement of a superconductor with a transition temperature higher than the boiling point of liquid nitrogen set-off a frenzy of research on trying to find other oxide hiTC superconductors. Within a few months the maximum superconducting transition reached 110 K (Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3010, and then 122K (TlBa2Ca3Cu4O11. It took several years to push TC up another 11 K to 133 K with the discovery of superconductivity in HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8, which is still the record holder today.








This volume of the Handbook is the first of a two-volume set of reviews devoted to the rare-earth-based high-temperature oxide superconductors (commonly known as hiTC superconductors). The history of hiTC superconductors is a few months short of being 14 years old when Bednorz and Müller published their results which showed that (La,BA)2CuO4 had a superconducting transition of ~30 K, which was about 7K higher than any other known superconducting material. Within a year the upper temperature limit was raised to nearly 100K with the discovery of an ~90K superconducting transition in YBa2Cu3O7-&dgr;. The announcement of a superconductor with a transition temperature higher than the boiling point of liquid nitrogen set-off a frenzy of research on trying to find other oxide hiTC superconductors. Within a few months the maximum superconducting transition reached 110 K (Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3010, and then 122K (TlBa2Ca3Cu4O11. It took several years to push TC up another 11 K to 133 K with the discovery of superconductivity in HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8, which is still the record holder today. Covers topics pertaining to solid state physics and materials science, and describes organic (and inorganic) reactions mediated by tetravalent cerium-based oxidants and by divalent samarium-based reductants. This book also focuses on the synthesis and use of divalent samarium-based reductants in organic and inorganic reactions. Since 1986, dramatic increases in the superconducting critical temperature Tc have been achieved in the layered perovskite-like cuprate superconductors, as illustrated in the plot of the maximum value of Tc vs. date in fig. 1.