Stuart A. Wolf

Vladimir Z. Kresin

The recent discovery of high-temperature superconductivity has resulted in a remarkable growth in the amount of research and the number of researchers working in this exciting field. Superconductivity is not a new phenomenon: in 1991 it will be 80 years old. Even though it was the newer discoveries which motivated us to write this book, the book itself is mainly a description of the fundamentals of the phenomenon. The book is written for a very broad audience, including students, engin eers, teachers, scientists, and others who are interested in learning about this exciting frontier of science. We have focused on the qualitative aspects, so that the reader can develop a basic understanding of the fundamental physics without getting bogged down in the details. Because of this approach, our list of refer ences is not comprehensive, and it is supplemented with a summary of additional reading consisting of monographs and selected review articles. (The articles we have referenced were either not reflected in the review articles on monographs or were milestones in the development of the field. ) In addition, some of the sections which can be skipped during the first reading have been marked with asterisks (*). Until recently, superconductivity was considered to belong to the field of low-temperature physics. This field was born, simultaneously with quantum physics, at the beginning of this century. Initially these two contemporaneous fields developed independently, but they soon became strongly coupled.

Fundamentals of Superconductivity

The Novel Mechanisms of Superconductivity Conference was initially conceived in the early part of 1986 as a small, 2-1/2 day workshop of 40-70 scientists, both theorists and experimentalists interested in exploring the possible evidence for exotic, non phononic superconductivity. Of course, the historic discoveries of high temperature oxide superconductors by Bednorz and Mftller and the subsequent enhancements by the Houston/Alabama groups made such a small conference impractical. The conference necessarily had to expand, 2-1/2 days became 4-1/2 days and superconductivity in the high Tc oxides became the largest single topic in the workshop. In fact, this conference became the first major conference on this topic and thus, these proceedings are also the first maj or publication. However, heavy fermion, organic and low carrier concentration superconductors remained a very important part of this workshop and articles by the leaders in these fields are included in these proceedings. Ultimately the workshop hosted rearly 400 scientists, students and media including representatives from the maj or research groups in the U.S., Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Novel Superconductivity

Hans Morawitz

"The first edition of our book Mechanisms of conventional and high Tc superconductivity was published in 1993"--p. [vii].

Mechanisms and Properties

Superconducting State

Guy Deutscher

Davor Pavuna

Julien Bok

Since the discovery in 1986 of high temperature superconductors by J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Müller, a considerable progress has been made and several important scientific problems have emerged. Within this NATO Advanced Study Institute our intention was to focus mainly on the controversial topic of the symmetry of the superconducting gap and given the very short coherence length, the role of fluctuations. The Institute on ‘The Gap Symmetry and Fluctuations in High- Superconductors’ took place in the “Institut d’Etudes Scientifiques de Cargèse” in Corsica, France, between 1 - 13 September 1997. The 110 participantsfrom 18 countries (yet 30 nationalities) including 23 full time lecturers, have spent two memorable weeks in this charming Mediterranean resort. All lecturers were asked to prepare pedagogical papers to clearly present the central physical idea behind specific model or experiment. The better understanding of physics of high temperature superconductivity is certainly needed to guide the development of applications of these materials in high and weak current devices.

The Gap Symmetry and Fluctuations in High-Tc Superconductors

Almadena Chtchelkanova

Yves Idzerda

This book is the culmination of a very successful Summer School on Spintronics, held in August 1998, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, that brought together experts on all aspects of magnetism and spin transport phenomenon. These experts lectured for one week on this emerging and important field of study. What was a fledgling field in 1998 has become one of the fastest growing areas of science today, having impact in many areas of information technology. This book is a collection of some of the lectures that were presented at that School, updated to provide the most current information on the topics that are covered in the various chapters. This subject has grown significantly since this seminal meeting and now is a major topic at physics and materials science meetings all over the world.

Magnetic Interactions and Spin Transport

Stuart Wolf This book originated as a series of lectures that were given as part of a Summer School on Spintronics in the end of August, 1998 at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It has taken some time to get these lectures in a form suitable for this book and so the process has been an iterative one to provide current information on the topics that are covered. There are some topics that have developed in the intervening years and we have tried to at least alert the readers to them in the Introduction where a rather complete set of references is provided to the current state of the art. The field of magnetism, once thought to be dead or dying, has seen a remarkable rebirth in the last decade and promises to get even more important as we enter the new millennium. This rebirth is due to some very new insight into how the spin degree of freedom of both electrons and nucleons can play a role in a new type of electronics that utilizes the spin in addition to or in place of the charge. For this new field to mature and prosper, it is important that students and postdoctoral fellows have access to the appropriate literature that can give them a sound basis in the funda mentals of this new field and I hope that this book is a very good start in this direction.

Stuart A. Wolf

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