New Class of
High-T Superconductors: since the discovery of high-temperature superconductors in 1986, all had been a ceramic made up of lanthanum-barium-copper oxides. Earlier this year, there was a flurry of papers from a number of research groups that announced they had found a new
class of high-temperature
superconductors, ceramics made of lanthanum, iron, arsenic,
oxygen, and fluorine. While their critical temperature is, by high-temperature superconducting standards, a not-so-hot 55 K, they have
opened a new pathway into the mystery of superconductor research. Follow
up work hasn't been able to determine whether these materials
behave the same as their more familiar cuprate cousins.