Lanthanum cuprate usually refers to the inorganic compound with the formula CuLa<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>. The name implies that the compound consists of a cuprate ([CuO<sub>n</sub>]<sup>2n-</sup>) salt of lanthanum (La<sup>3+</sup>). In fact it is a highly covalent solid. It is prepared by high temperature reaction of lanthanum oxide and copper(II) oxide follow by annealing under oxygen.
The material adopts a tetragonal structure related to potassium tetrafluoronickelate (K<sub>2</sub>NiF<sub>4</sub>), which is orthorhombic. Replacement of some lanthanum by barium gives the quaternary phase CuLa<sub>1.85</sub>Ba<sub>0.15</sub>O<sub>4</sub>, called lanthanum barium copper oxide. That doped material displays superconductivity at , which at the time of its discovery was a high temperature. This discovery initiated research on cuprate superconductors and was the basis of a Nobel Prize in Physics to Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Müller.