Attempts to explain and observe TCNQ behavior at 60 K

Considerable theoretical and experimental activity has been inspired by the report by a Penn group that they had observed superconducting fluctuations in an organic solid above 60 K. John Bardeen has published a possible explanation for the effect involving a coupling between electrons and a lattice wave. Bernd Matthias has criticized the quality of the experiment and attributes the observations to dirt and ferroelectricity. A group at Johns Hopkins University has done microwave conductivity experiments on one of the organic solids studied by the Penn group and does not find unusually high conductivity. And experimenters at Brown Boveri, who studied a different one‐dimensional compound, believe that the Penn group might be observing spurious conductivities.