Chemistry and High Temperature Superconductivity

Seven distinct families of superconductors with critical temperatures at ambient pressure that equal or surpass the historic 23 K limit for Nb3Ge have been discovered in the last 25 years. Each family is reviewed briefly and their common chemical features are discussed. High temperature superconductors are distinguished by having a high (\geq 50%) content of nonmetallic elements and fall into two broad classes. 'Metal-nonmetal' superconductors require a specific combination of elements such as Cu-O and Fe-As which give rise to the highest known Tc's, probably through a magnetic pairing mechanism. 'Nonmetal-bonded' materials contain covalently-bonded nonmetal anion networks and are BCS-like superconductors. Fitting an extreme value function to the distribution of Tc values for the known high-Tc families suggests that the probability of a newly discovered superconductor family having maximum Tc > 100 K is ~0.1-1%, decreasing to ~0.02-0.2% for room temperature superconductivity.

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