Layered Superconductors: Volume 1Layered Superconductors, Volume I, describes the chemistry and physics of all layered superconductors. Although widespread interest in the subject did not really arise until the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates, it has a much longer history, and is still evolving rapidly. This book describes the chemical syntheses, crystal structures, calculations and measurements of the Fermi surfaces, and measurements of the normal state physical properties and of the upper and lower critical fields of all classes of layered superconductors. At present, the large classes of layered superconductors are the graphite intercalation compounds, the transition metal dichalcogenides, the intercalated transition metal dichalcogenides, the organic layered superconductors,various artificial superconducting superlattices, the cuprates, binary and ternary intermetallics with the AlB2 structure, ternary and quaternary intermetallics of the ThCr2Si2 structure, the borocarbides, the iron pnictides, the iron oxypnictides, and the iron chalcogenides. Each of the stoichiometric compounds Sr2RuO4, MgB2, La3Ni2B2N3, and Ag5Pb2O6 are layered superconductors, as are intercalated -ZrNCl and -HfNCl. Many of these materials exhibit electronic instabilities such as charge-density waves, spin-density waves, magnetism, and pseudogaps, which may have closely related origins, and which compete with the superconductivity. Some of these materials are extremely anisotropic, while others are nearly isotropic in their normal and superconducting behaviours. To characterize the superconductivity, three phenomenological models are presented: the anisotropic London model, the anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau model, and the Lawrence-Doniach model. These models are used to calculate the upper and lower critical fields of layered superconductors. Experimental verification of these and selected microscopic models is provided. |
