Physical Society Colloquium

The Competitive Landscape of High-Tc Superconductivity

Jennifer E. Hoffman

Harvard University

A century ago, Kamerlingh-Onnes first discovered superconductivity. Twenty-five years ago, Bednorz and Muller found the “high-Tc” cuprates which superconduct above the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Three years ago, a second family of Fe-based “high-Tc” superconductors was discovered. Today, we understand how Kamerlingh-Onnes superconductivity arises from the normal metal state. However, we have no predictive theory for high-Tc superconductivity because we have yet to understand the stubbornly abnormal, decidedly non-metallic ‘pseudogap’ state from which high-Tc superconductivity arises. This abnormal “normal” state may host a whole zoo of competing electronic ordered states. In this talk I will summarize recent developments in the understanding of high-Tc superconductivity, focusing particularly competing electronic order. I will discuss our recent scanning tunneling microscopy studies of broken symmetry states in cuprate superconductors.