Progress in research on the materials, mechanism, application and experimental techniques of superconductors

During the past three years the National Laboratory for Superconductivity has made significant progress in research on high temperature superconductivity and other related topics such as new materials synthesis, growth of high quality single crystals, mechanism studies and the development of advanced research equipment. We have grown high quality single crystal samples both for our own studies on the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity and for collaboration with leading research groups in the world. Some of the single crystals we grow are recognized as the best. Searching for new superconductors has always been one of our primary directions. The work on newly discovered iron-based superconductors has attracted international attention, and the highest Tc reported is from our laboratory. To study the mechanism of high temperature superconductors a number of facilities have been set up or developed. These include instruments for low temperature specific heat measurements, tunneling spectroscopy, angular resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and optical conductivity spectroscopy. Various important results have been obtained with these facilities. The Fermi arc ground state picture derived from specific heat data and new modes in electronic states observed by high precision angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy developed in house are two examples. Work on mesoscopic superconducting films has demonstrated interesting new features associated with the interplay between fluxions and artifacts. Extensive work has also been performed on superconducting and other related thin film materials and the applications of superconducting thin film devices.