A broad introduction to high Tc superconductors, their parent compounds and related novel materials, covering both fundamental questions of modern solid state physics (such as correlation effects, fluctuations, unconventional symmetry of superconducting order parameter) and applied problems related to short coherence length, grain boundaries and thin films. The information that can be derived from electron spectroscopy and optical measurements is illustrated and explained in detail. Descriptions widely employ the clear, relatively simple, phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau model of complex phenomena, such as vortex physics, vortex charge determination, plasmons in superconductors, Cooper pair mass, and wetting of surfaces. The first comprehensive reviews of several novel classes of materials are presented, including borocarbides and chain cuprates.

Inhalt
List Of Contents.- 1. Electronic and Magnetic Structure of Cuprates.- The electronic structure of high-Ta superconductors: introduction and recent studies of model compounds.- Fermi surface mapping by angle-scanned photoemission.- Magnetic properties of low-dimensional cuprates.- Electronic and magnetic properties of cuprate chains and related materials - From bandstructure to aspects of many-body physics in real materials.- Charge density waves with complex order parameter in bilayered cuprates.- 2. Borocarbides and Ruthenates.- Coexistence of superconductivity and magnetism in borocarbides.- Superconducting transition metal borocarbides - challenging materials in between traditional superconductors and high-Ta cuprates.- BCS Analysis of the physical properties of nonmagnetic borocarbides - What can we learn from the experimental data?.- Polarization-dependent X-ray absorption spectroscopy on single crystal YNI2B2C superconductors.- P-wave superconductivity in Sr2RuO4.- 3. Plasmons and Josephson effect.- Plasma modes in HTC superconductors within the anisotropic London model.- Plasma modes in thin superconducting films.- Coupling of intrinsic Josephson oscillations in layered superconductors.- Nonstationary Josephson and quasiparticle tunnel currents through junctions between superconductors with spin-density waves.- 4. Fluctuations, inhomogeneities, and optical properties.- Superconducting fluctuations and their role in the role in the normal state anomalies of high temperature superconductors.- On the interplay between Te inhomogeneities at longlenght scales and thermal fluctuations around the average superconducting transition in cuprates.- Electron-boson effects in the infrared properties of metals - What can we learn from the optical conductivity.- Optical study of YCBO thin films: spectral anomalies of low temperature dynamics of strongly correlated charges.- 5. Superconducting Properties.- 5.1 Microscopic Aspects.- to d-wave superconductivity.- Nonlocal electrodynamics at superconducting surfaces.- Fermi liquid superconductivity - Concepts, equations, applications.- Mesoscopic normal-metal conductivity in the macroscopic NS system.- 5.2 Phenomenological Aspects and Applications.- Pinning of vortices and linear and nonlinear ac susceptibilities in high-Ta superconductors.- Wetting phase transitions and superconductivity - The Role of Surface Enhancement of the Order Parameter in the GL Theory.- Bernoulli effect in the quantum Hall regime and type-II superconductors in magnetic field - A new superfluid effect in two dimensional electron gas and a method for determination of the effective mass and vortex charge in superconductors.- Grain boundaries and other interfaces in cuprates high-Ta supercondoctors.- Enhancement of the critical current density of YBa2Cu3O7_8-films by substrate irradiation.- Design of HTS DC squid gradiometer for application in nondestructive evaluation and biomagnetism.