Simplicity will out: Novel experiment-based expression explains behavior of unconventional superconductors

(Phys.org)--Superconductivity - perhaps the leading example of emergent quantum behavior in matter - was discovered in 1911 but lacked theoretical explanation for almost five decades. In 1957, John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer (BCS) developed a microscopic theory of superconductivity1 that came to be known as the BCS theory, which describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a condensation of Cooper pairs into a boson-like state. BCS theory explains the behav...