Microstructural and electron-structural anomalies and high temperature superconductivity

Microstructural and electron-structural anomalies have been found to exist in all HYSs by x-ray diffraction and positron annihilation experiments. These anomalies are induced either by doping near the metal-insulator phase boundary at 300 K, or by cooling the HTSs below Tc. This has been taken as evidence for a charge transfer between the CuO2-layers and their surroundings, which suggests the importance of charge transfers and implies the importance of charge fluctuations in HTS. Several new compounds with the T'- and T*-phases have been found. Further implications of these observations are discussed