Physics Today: Fe-based Superconductors, first dedicated synchrotron facility

May-2008 issue of Physics Today has an article on recently discovered Fe-based superconductors.

In the same issue there’s an article on evolution of a dedicated synchrotron facility, a 240 MeV storage ring in Winsconsin named Tantalus.

Superconductivity in iron-based layered compounds

The featured article this time is advanced online publication in Nature on Superconductivity in FeAs-based layered compounds by Takahashi et al.

This is the first publication in Science/Nature from what I am sure many to follow on this topic, with a few new publications per day appearing on arxiv.

By starting with LaOFeAs compound and doping F at oxygen sites, the

superconducting temperature of 26K is reached under atmospheric pressure. This Tc can be increased up to 43K by applying pressure (maximum of 43K at

4GPa, with the higher pressure decreasing the Tc). This is the highest

non-cuprate Tc observed, and there is already some evidence that the pairing mechanism is non-conventional.