Progress in Borocarbide Research

Abstract

The discovery of the borocarbide superconductors was announced just six short years ago, and the present NATO workshop was organized to bring together the active researchers in this area to present their latest results, exchange ideas, review the current status of our understanding of these fascinating materials, and map the optimal course for future studies. One of the aspects that clearly stood out at the workshop was the spectacular progress the field has made in such a short time. The basic trends of the electronic and superconducting properties have been revealed, along with the magnetic ordering of the rare earths and their interaction with superconductivity. One reason for this rapid progress is the favourable synthesis properties of this class of materials, which has allowed high quality polycrystalline samples over a wide range of compositions to be available for investigation to many researchers, as well as single crystal specimens early in the development of the field. The general availability of high quality specimens is critical to the development of an in-depth understanding of any class of materials, and for the borocarbides this has permitted quicker progress in our understanding than for related systems such as the Chevrel phase superconductors, or the high T_c cuprate superconductors.