Unexpected role of Madelung potential in monoplanar high-Tc cuprate superconductors

For a series of monoplanar high-Tc superconductor cuprates a quantitative linear relationship between Tc and the Madelung potential at the Cu site is found. The Madelung potential is calculated using the Ewald summation procedure for a simple ionic model with the crystal structure as the only external input. This correlation opens the possibility to predict Tc of new or modified existing monolayered superconducting cuprates from its crystal structure. The existence of such a linear relationship strongly suggests that the role of the whole crystal structure of the material is crucial and should be explicitly included in the models for high-Tc superconductors.