Arsenic heats up iron superconductors.

Hand, Eric

The article reports that researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, has synthesized a new superconductor based on iron rather than copper. The material also featured oxygen, lanthanum and phosphorus, but its transition temperature was just 4 degrees above absolute zero, no better than the very first superconductor discovered a century before. The iron-based family might provide a fresh opportunity to engineer superconductors that operate at practical temperatures. It also offers chemists a chance to finally figure out how high-temperature superconductors work.

TOKYO (Japan); JAPAN; IRON; TRANSITION metals; ELECTROLYTIC iron; SEMICONDUCTORS; PHOTOSYNTHETIC oxygen evolution; SUPERCONDUCTORS; SOLID state electronics

Nature, 2008, Vol 452, Issue 7190, p-1

0028-0836

Academic Journal

10.1038/452922a