Rare-earth doping of high T/sub c/ superconducting perovskites

In most superconductors, the magnetic moments of rare-earth (Re) ions interact with the conduction electrons and break the Cooper pairs, supressing or destroying superconductivity. But in the perovskite-based superconductors discovered recently, the rare-earth ions are separated from the copper and oxygen where the superconducting electrons are believed to be located. The authors study the effects of rare-earth doping in both the 40K La/sub 2-x/Sr/sub x/CuO/sub 4-y/ system and 90K YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-x/ system. In these materials, the RE ions only weakly affect superconductivity, and the effects we do see are more strongly correlated with changes in the volume of the crystal than with the magnetism of the rare earths