Layered superconductors have provided some interesting fields in condensed matter physics owing to the low dimensionality of their electronic states. For example, the high-T c (high transition temperature) cuprates and the Febased superconductors possess a layered crystal structure composed of a stacking of spacer (blocking) layers and conduction (superconducting) layers, CuO 2 planes or Fe-Anion layers. The spacer layers provide carriers to the conduction layers and induce exotic superconductivity. Recently, we have reported superconductivity in the novel BiS 2 -based layered compound Bi 4 O 4 S 3 . It was found that superconductivity of Bi 4 O 4 S 3 originates from the BiS 2 layers. The crystal structure is composed of a stacking of BiS 2 superconducting layers and the spacer layers, which resembles those of high-T c cuprate and the Fe-based superconductors. Here we report a discovery of a new type of BiS 2 -based layered superconductor LaO 1Àx F x BiS 2 , with a T c as high as 10.6 K.

We have established a plot of the anion height dependence of superconducting transition temperature T c for the typical Fe-based superconductors. The plot showed a symmetric curve with a peak around 1.38 Å. Both data at ambient pressure and under high pressure obeyed the unique curve. This plot will be one of the key strategies for both understanding the mechanism of Fe-based superconductivity and search for the new Fe-based superconductors with higher T c .2

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Quasicrystals are metallic alloys that possess long-range, aperiodic structures with diffraction symmetries forbidden to conventional crystals. Since the discovery of quasicrystals by Schechtman et al. in 1984, there has been considerable progress in resolving their geometric structure. For example, it is well known that the golden ratio of mathematics and art occurs over and over again in their crystal structure. However, the characteristic properties of the electronic states--whether they are extended as in periodic crystals or localized as in amorphous materials--are still unresolved. Here we report the first observation of quantum (T = 0) critical phenomena of the Au-Al-Yb quasicrystal--the magnetic susceptibility and the electronic specific heat coefficient arising from strongly correlated 4f electrons of the Yb atoms diverge as T→0. Furthermore, we observe that this quantum critical phenomenon is robust against hydrostatic pressure. By contrast, there is no such divergence in a crystalline approximant, a phase whose composition is close to that of the quasicrystal and whose unit cell has atomic decorations (that is, icosahedral clusters of atoms) that look like the quasicrystal. These results clearly indicate that the quantum criticality is associated with the unique electronic state of the quasicrystal, that is, a spatially confined critical state. Finally we discuss the possibility that there is a general law underlying the conventional crystals and the quasicrystals.