The quest for high-temperature superconductivity: Can theory help?

To find materials which superconduct at normal temperatures is an enormous challenge. So-far the discoveries of new superconductors were nearly always empirical and often surprising. The high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates has not been understood, but for all known cuprates it has been found that the experimental critical temperatures correlate with the calculated dispersions of the conduction band. Although it seems impossible to find cuprates with "better" bandstructures, this might be achieved with man-made heterostructures of alternating nickelates and insulating oxides.