Recent trends in the preparation of high-Curie-temperature (high-T c ) yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconductors YBa 2 Cu 4 O 8 (Y124) and YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 (Y123) have witnessed the promising application of sol-gel processing [1][2][3][4] as a route to the homogeneous crystallization of these important materials. Many of the current sol-gel routes, however, result in the formation of large barium carbonate crystallites, [5][6][7][8] and their persistence in the reaction mixture has such an adverse effect on the stoichiometry of the superconducting phase that multistep heating protocols, usually involving more than one flowing gas, are required to prevent barium carbonate deposition. Here, we demonstrate a novel and facile method to circumvent this problem by constraining the nucleation, particle growth, and sintering of barium carbonate crystals within an amorphous sol-gel matrix consisting of sodium alginate enriched in guluronate domains. Significantly, our results indicate that preorganization of barium ions in the polysaccharide matrix produces spatially separated barium carbonate nanoparticles that act as sites for the subsequent catalytic outgrowth of Y124 superconducting nanowires at temperatures above 800 8C.A downscaling in the size of superconducting device components means that there is a pressing need to be able to form superconducting materials with controlled size and morphology for direct incorporation into device applications.[9] A sol-gel approach would allow for such fine morphological control without the need for complicated and energy-intensive vapor or plasma deposition techniques, yet uncontrolled formation of barium carbonate in the synthesis of high-T c YBCO superconductors is a recurring problem. This could possibly be circumvented by developing chemical and physical methods to control the nucleation, particle growth, and sintering of this precursor prior to thermal transformation.Moreover, by limiting the size of barium carbonate particles to the nanometer range and restricting their spatial distribution, it should be possible to control the morphology and organization of YBCO crystals by catalytic outgrowth from discrete sites in the sol-gel matrix. One possible method for achieving this could involve the preorganization of barium ions within an appropriate polymer matrix. In this regard, the biopolymer chitosan has been used in the sol-gel processing of YBCO, [10] although no attempts have been made to minimize the diffusion and aggregation of BaCO 3 nuclei and particles during sintering of the superconductor precursors. In this Communication, we present to our knowledge the first example that demonstrates rational control of the nucleation and confinement of precursor nanoparticles of barium carbonate during the sol-gel processing of YBCO superconductors. For this, we use a functional biopolymer in the form of the unbranched, anionic polysaccharide sodium alginate, which consists of blocks of polyguluronate (-G-) n , polymannuronate (-M-) n , and alternating (-G-M-) n residues,...