Nanostructural model of metal-insulator transition in layered LixZrNCl superconductors

The self-organized dopant percolative filamentary model, entirely orbital in character (no fictive spins), has recently quantitatively and specifically explained chemical trends in ceramic layered cuprate superconductors. Here, this model explains the observation of an abrupt jump Delta T-c(x) in LixZrNCl powders over a wide composition range Delta x, as well as many other features in the resistivity, lattice constants, Raman spectra, upper critical field, and Meissner volume factor. The ceramic data confirm one-dimensional features in realistic structural models of three-dimensional metal-insulator transitions that had been previously only hypothetical. These data provide a "missing link" between the metal-insulator transition in semiconductor impurity bands and cuprate superconductors. They show that all three material families are united by exhibiting an intermediate phase, absent from crystals, but seen in many properties of network glasses.