INTERLAYER TUNNELING AND GAP ANISOTROPY IN HIGH-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTORS

A quantitative analysis of a recent model of high-temperature supercon ductors based on an interlayer tunneling mechanism is presented. This model can account well for the observed magnitudes of the high transit ion temperatures in these materials and implies a gap that does not ch ange sign, can be substantially anisotropic, and has the same symmetry as the crystal. The experimental consequences explored so far are con sistent with the observations.