The Novel Mechanisms of Superconductivity Conference was initially conceived in the early part of 1986 as a small, 2-1/2 day workshop of 40-70 scientists, both theorists and experimentalists interested in exploring the possible evidence for exotic, non phononic superconductivity. Of course, the historic discoveries of high temperature oxide superconductors by Bednorz and Mftller and the subsequent enhancements by the Houston/Alabama groups made such a small conference impractical. The conference necessarily had to expand, 2-1/2 days became 4-1/2 days and superconductivity in the high Tc oxides became the largest single topic in the workshop. In fact, this conference became the first major conference on this topic and thus, these proceedings are also the first maj or publication. However, heavy fermion, organic and low carrier concentration superconductors remained a very important part of this workshop and articles by the leaders in these fields are included in these proceedings. Ultimately the workshop hosted rearly 400 scientists, students and media including representatives from the maj or research groups in the U.S., Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Volume 2 of Novel Superfluids continues the presentation of recent results on superfluids, including novel metallic systems, superfluid liquids, and atomic/molecular gases of bosons and fermions, particularly when trapped in optical lattices. Since the discovery of superconductivity (Leyden, 1911), superfluid 4He (Moscow and Cambridge, 1937), superfluid 3He (Cornell, 1972), and observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) of a gas (Colorado and MIT, 1995), the phenomenon of superfluidity has remained one of the most important topics in physics. Again and again, novel superfluids yield surprising and interesting behaviors. The many classes of metallic superconductors, including the high temperature perovskite-based oxides, MgB2, organic systems, and Fe-based pnictides, continue to offer challenges. The technical applications grow steadily. What the temperature and field limits are remains illusive. Atomic nuclei, neutron stars and the Universe itself all involve various aspects of superfluidity, and the lessons learned have had a broad impact on physics as a whole.

Authored by many of the world's leading experts on high-Tc superconductivity, this volume presents a panorama of ongoing research in the field, as well as insights into related multifunctional materials. The contributions cover many different and complementary aspects of the physics and materials challenges, with an emphasis on superconducting materials that have emerged since the discovery of the cuprate superconductors, for example pnictides, MgB2, H2S and other hydrides. Special attention is also paid to interface superconductivity. In addition to superconductors, the volume also addresses materials related to polar and multifunctional ground states, another class of materials that owes its discovery to Prof. Müller's ground-breaking research on SrTiO3.

The unexpected and therefore really amazing discovery of J. G. Bednorz and K. A. R32 Miiller , that certain oxide compounds enter a superconducting state at temperatures above 30 K pushed research on superconductivity into the limelight of science in general in a way that seemed reserved for a while for high-energy or particle physics only. The common interest was then even more aroused when subsequent work rather quickly established that in the same class of compounds (oxides), critical temperatures of superconductivity above R36 the boiling point of nitrogen could be achieved . It might therefore be expected, that this entire review would solely deal with superconductivity at high temperatures, i. e. , above the boiling point of hydrogen. From my point of view, however, any unexpected occurrence of superconductivity is a challenge to scientists interested either in the physics of this phenomenon or in its materials-science aspects. In this respect, the last ten years have been quite revolutionary in the sense that on various occasions, superconductivity was discovered in materials whose physical properties were not obviously favourable for adopting this ground state. This period started with the observation that homogeneous coexistence of superconductivity and magnetic order in the same material was possible. Later it was found that electrons whose effective mass was tremendously enhanced by magnetic interactions, may also form a superconducting state, namely in materials that were subsequently identified as heavy electron superconductors.

Since the discovery of superconductivity, a great number of theoretical and experimental efforts have been made to describe this new phase of matter that emerged in many body systems. In this regard, theoretical models have been presented; the most famous of which was the BCS theory that can only describe conventional superconductors. With the discovery of new class superconductors, the superconducting mechanism became a new challenge in the field of condensed matter physics. This unexpected discovery opened a new area in the history of superconductivity, and experimental researchers started trying to find new compounds in this class of superconductors. These superconductors are often characterized by the anisotropic character in the superconducting gap function with nodes along a certain direction in the momentum space. Since the pairing interaction has an important role in the superconducting gap structure, its determination is very important to explain the basic pairing mechanism.In this regard, this book includes valuable theoretical and experimental discussions about the properties of superconductors. Here you will find valuable research describing the properties of unconventional superconductors.

This book reports on the latest developments in the field of Superfluidity, one of the most fundamental, interesting, and important problems in physics, with applications ranging from metals, helium liquids, photons in cavities, excitons in semiconductors, to the interior of neutron stars and the present state of the Universe as a whole.

Research into high-Tc materials demands the co-operation of physicists, chemists and materials scientists to discover the best solutions to the most important challenges presented by the field. In the fifth annual Workshop on High Temperature Superconductors and Novel Inorganic Materials Engineering, the topic is extended beyond high-Tc superconductivity to include other advanced oxide materials, mainly colossal magnetoresistance materials, which are closely related to the ceramic superconductors. This book covers the synthesis, characterisation (both structural and physical) and engineering of this class of materials.

This book contains lectures delivered at the 10th Physics Summer School on “Physics of Novel Materials” at Australian National University by internationally reputed scientists. It covers a wide variety of materials: semiconductors, superconductors, polymers, zeolites, clusters and nanostructures, and transport in novel materials. It is hard to find theoretical and experimental aspects of such diverse topics on novel materials in a single volume.