The electronic properties of the cuprate superconductors have been stu
died by measuring the reflectance over the frequency range from the fa
r-infrared to the near-ultraviolet (roughly, 10 meV-5 eV). There is an
interesting behavior in both the normal state and the superconducting
state. In the normal state, there is the well-known non-Drude distrib
ution of the doping-induced spectral weight. In the superconducting st
ate, the spectral weight of the superconducting condensate correlates
with T-c in a variety of materials. Remarkably, in optimally doped sup
erconductors, only about 20% of the doping-induced carriers joins the
superfluid; the rest of the spectral weight remains at finite frequenc
ies. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.