Covalent Superconductor - History

History

The priority of many discoveries in science is vigorously disputed (see, e.g., Nobel Prize controversies). Another example, after Sumio Iijima has "discovered" carbon nanotubes in 1991, many scientists have pointed out that carbon nanofibers were actually observed decades earlier. The same could be said about superconductivity in covalent semiconductors. Superconductivity in germanium and silicon-germanium was predicted theoretically as early as in the 1960s. Shortly after, superconductivity was experimentally detected in germanium telluride. In 1976, superconductivity with Tc = 3.5 K was observed experimentally in germanium implanted with copper ions; it was experimentally demonstrated that amorphization was essential for the superconductivity (in Ge), and the superconductivity was assigned to Ge itself, not copper.

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