Superconductivity

J.D. Jorgensen, B.W. Veal, A.P. Paulikas, L.J. Nowicki, et al., "Structural properties of oxygen-deficient YBa2Cu3O7-d," Physical Review B, 41:1863-77, 1990.

James D. Jorgensen (Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.): "YBa2Cu3O7-d is the compound that pushed the record temperature for superconductivity from 35 K to 92 K. Shortly after its discovery, many researchers realized that the superconducting properties could be varied dramatically by changing the oxygen content. The composition can be varied over a remarkably large range, from six to seven oxygen atoms per unit cell, with the properties changing systematically from insulating to 92- K superconducting behavior. Although several previous papers discussed aspects of this novel phenomenon, ours was the first to report a comprehensive study of the superconducting and structural properties over the entire composition range. Our structural information was obtained by neutron diffraction, which is the only definitive method for probing the behavior of the all-important oxygen atoms in...