No Arabic abstract
We have performed a systematic angle-resolved photoemission study of as-grown and oxygen-reduced Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$ and Pr$_{1-x}$LaCe$_{x}$CuO$_4$ electron-doped cuprates. In contrast to the common belief, neither the band filling nor the band parameters are significantly affected by the oxygen reduction process. Instead, we show that the main electronic role of the reduction process is to remove an anisotropic leading edge gap around the Fermi surface. While the nodal leading edge gap is induced by long-range antiferomagnetic order, the origin of the antinodal one remains unclear.
We discuss evolution of the Fermi surface (FS) topology with doping in electron doped cuprates within the framework of a one-band Hubbard Hamiltonian, where antiferromagnetism and superconductivity are assumed to coexist in a uniform phase. In the lightly doped insulator, the FS consists of electron pockets around the $(pi,0)$ points. The first change in the FS topology occurs in the optimally doped region when an additional hole pocket appears at the nodal point. The second change in topology takes place in the overdoped regime ($sim18%$) where antiferromagnetism disappears and a large $(pi,pi)$-centered metallic FS is formed. Evidence for these two topological transitions is found in recent Hall effect and penetration depth experiments on Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_{x}$CuO$_{4-delta}$ (PCCO) and with a number of spectroscopic measurements on Nd$_{2-x}$Ce$_{x}$CuO$_{4-delta}$ (NCCO).
We use thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements to study the effect of oxygen annealing on the superconductivity and magnetism in Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_{4-delta}$. Although the transition temperature $T_c$ measured by susceptibility and superconducting coherence length increase smoothly with gradual oxygen removal from the annealing process, bulk superconductivity, marked by a specific heat anomaly at $T_c$ and the presence of a neutron magnetic resonance, only appears abruptly when $T_c$ is close to the largest value. These results suggest that the effect of oxygen annealing must be first determined in order to establish a Ce-doping dependence of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity phase diagram for electron-doped copper oxides.
The evolution of the electronic state through the reduction annealing has been investigated in electron-doped Pr_1.3-x_La_0.7_Ce_x_CuO_4+delta_ (x=0.10) single crystals with the so-called T structure. From the ab plane and c axis electrical resistivity measurements in magnetic fields, it has been found that, through the reduction annealing, the strongly localized state of carriers accompanied by the antiferromagnetic (AF) pseudogap in the as-grown crystal changes to a metallic state bringing about the Kondo effect without AF pseudogap and to a superconducting state. These results are able to be understood in terms of a model based on the strong electron correlation. The complete removal of excess oxygen in the T-cuprates is expected to result in the appearance of superconductivity in a wide range of the Ce concentration including the parent compound of x=0.
Electron-doped and hole-doped superconducting cuprates exhibit a symmetric phase diagram as a function of doping. This symmetry is however only approximate. Indeed, electron-doped cuprates become superconductors only after a specific annealing process: This annealing affects the oxygen content only by a tiny amount, but has a dramatic impact on the electronic properties of the sample. Here, we report the occurrence of superconductivity in oxygen-deficient Nd$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$ thin films grown in oxygen-free environment, after annealing in pure argon flow. As verified by x-ray diffraction, annealing induces an increase of the interlayer distance between CuO$_2$ planes in the crystal structure. Since this distance is correlated to the concentration of oxygens in apical positions, and since oxygen content cannot substantially increase during annealing, our experiments indicate that the superconducting phase transition has to be ascribed to a migration of oxygen ions to apical positions during annealing. Moreover, as we confirm via first-principles density functional theory calculations, the changes in the structural and transport properties of the films can be theoretically described by a specific redistribution of the existing oxygens ions at apical positions with respect to CuO$_2$ planes, which remodulates the electronic band structure and suppresses the antiferromagnetic order, allowing the emergence of hole superconductivity.
The formation of domains comprising alternating hole rich and hole poor ladders recently observed by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy by Kohsaka et al., on lightly hole doped cuprates, is interpreted in terms of an attractive mechanism which favors the presence of doped holes on Cu sites located each on one side of an oxygen atom. This mechanism leads to a geometrical pattern of alternating hole-rich and hole-poor ladders with a periodicity equal to 4 times the lattice spacing in the CuO plane, as observed experimentally. To cite this article: G. Deutscher, P.-G. de Gennes, C. R. Physique 8 (2007).