Pressure dependence of the conductivity and thermoelectric power is measured through the Mott transition in the layer organic conductor EtMe3P[Pd(dmit)2]2. The critical behavior of the thermoelectric effect provides a clear and objective determination of the Mott-Hubbard transition during the isothermal pressure sweep. Above the critical end point, the metal-insulator crossing, determined by the thermoelectric effect minimum value, is not found to coincide with the maximum of the derivative of the conductivity as a function of pressure. We show that the critical exponents of the Mott-Hubbard transition fall within the Ising universality class regardless of the dimensionality of the system.
Angle-dependent magnetoresistance measurements are used to determine the isotropic and anisotropic components of the transport scattering rate in overdoped Tl$_2$Ba$_2$CuO$_{6+delta}$ for a range of $T_c$ values between 15K and 35K. The size of the anisotropic scattering term is found to scale linearly with $T_c$, establishing a link between the superconducting and normal state physics. Comparison with results from angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy indicates that the transport and quasiparticle lifetimes are distinct.
The angle-dependent interlayer magnetoresistance of overdoped Tl$_2$Ba$_2$CuO$_{6+delta}$ has been measured in high magnetic fields up to 45 Tesla. A conventional Boltzmann transport analysis with no basal-plane anisotropy in the cyclotron frequency $omega_c$ or transport lifetime $tau$ is shown to be inadequate for explaining the data. We describe in detail how the analysis can be modified to incorporate in-plane anisotropy in these two key quantities and extract the degree of anisotropy for each by assuming a simple four-fold symmetry. While anisotropy in $omega_c$ and other Fermi surface parameters may improve the fit, we demonstrate that the most important anisotropy is that in the transport lifetime, thus confirming its role in the physics of overdoped superconducting cuprates.
