Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
Recent progress on the superconducting and normal state properties characteristic to the organic metals β-(BEDT-TTF)2X are presented. Out of a systematic study on the β-(BEDT-TTF)2X salts, including β-(BEDT-TTF)2 trihalide mixed crystals, with the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) varying from 8 K to below 1 K, empirical rules for various factors governing the Tc in this class of organic metals have been extracted. In addition to the low- and high-Tc states, with Tc=l K and 8 K, respectively, a new superconducting state with Tc=2 K was found in α-(BEDT-TTF)2I3. A particular attention is paid for the correlation between Tc and resistivity. In addition, a correlation between Tc and the anisotropy of coherence length is also considered.