Recent STM measurements have observed many inhomogeneous patterns of the local density of states on the surface of high-T_c cuprates. As a first step to study such disordered strong correlated systems, we use the BdG equation for the t-t-t-J model with an impurity. The impurity is taken into account by a local potential or local variation of the hopping/exchange terms. Strong correlation is treated by a Gutzwiller mean-field theory with local Gutzwiller factors and local chemical potentials. It turned out that the potential impurity scattering is greatly suppressed, while the local variation of hoppings/exchanges is enhanced.
Neutron scattering can provide detailed information about the energy and momentum dependence of the magnetic dynamics of materials provided sufficiently large single crystals are available. This requirement has limited the number of rare earth high temperature superconducting materials that have been studied in any detail. However, improvements in crystal growth in recent years has resulted in considerable progress in our understanding of the behaviour of the magnetism of the CuO planes in both the superconducting and normal state. This review will focus primarily on the spin fluctuations in La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} and YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-x} since these are the two systems for which the most detailed results are available. Although gaps in our understanding remain, there is now a consistent picture of on the spin fluctuation spectra in both systems as well as the changes induced by the superconducting transition. For both La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} and underdoped YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-x} the normal state response is characterised by incommensurate magnetic fluctuations. The low energy excitations are suppressed by the superconducting transition with a corresponding enhancement in the response at higher energies. For YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-x} the superconducting state is accompanied by the rapid development of a commensurate resonant response whose energy varies with T_{c}. In underdoped samples this resonance persists above T_{c}.
Extensive Cu-NMR studies on multilayered high-Tc cuprates have deduced the following results;(1) Antiferromagnetic (AFM) moment M_{AFM} is decreased with doping, regardless of the number of CuO_2 layers n, and collapses around a carrier density N_h = 0.17. (2) The AFM ordering temperature is enhanced as the out-of-plane coupling J_{out} increases with increasing n. (3) The in-plane superexchange J_{in} is invariant with doping, but is even increased. (4) The dome shape of T_c from the underdoped to the overdoped regime with a maximum T_c at N_h = 0.22 does not depend on n, but its maximum value of T_c seems to depend on n moderately. The present results strongly suggest that the AFM interaction plays the vital role as the glue for the Cooper pairs, which will lead us to a genuine understanding of why the T_c of cuprate superconductors is so high.
We have performed a detailed study of Cu $2p$ core-level spectra in single layer La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$, La doped Bi$_2$Sr$_{1.6}$La$_{0.4}$CuO$_{6+delta}$ (Bi2201) and bilayer Bi$_2$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+delta}$ (Bi2212) high-temperature superconductors by using hard x-ray photoemission (HX-PES). We identify the Cu$^{2+}$ derived (i) the Zhang-Rice singlet (ZRS) feature, (ii) the $d^{n+1}underline{L}$ (ligand screened) feature, (iii) the $d^{n}$ satellite feature, as well as the hole-doping derived high binding energy feature in the main peak. In Bi-based cuprates, intensities of the $d^{n}$ satellite features seem to be strongly enhanced compared to La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$. From x-ray photon energy dependent measurements, it is shown that the increased intensity in the satellite region is associated with Bi $4s$ core-level spectral intensity. The corrected $d^{n}$ satellite intensity is independent of the doping content or number of Cu-O layers. Our results suggest a correlation of the relative intensity of ZRS feature and hole-doping induced high binding energy spectral changes in the main peak with superconductivity.
Local electronic effects in the vicinity of an impurity provide pivotal insight into the origin of unconventional superconductivity, especially when the materials are located on the edge of magnetic instability. In high-temperature cuprate superconductors, a strong suppression of superconductivity and appearance of low-energy bound states are clearly observed near nonmagnetic impurities. However, whether these features are common to other strongly correlated superconductors has not been established experimentally. Here, we report the {$in$} {$situ$} scanning tunneling microscopy observation of electronic structure around a nonmagnetic Zn impurity in heavy-fermion CeCo(In$_{1-x}$Zn$_x$)$_5$ films, which are epitaxially grown by the state-of-the-art molecular beam epitaxy technique. The films have very wide atomically flat terraces and Zn atoms residing on two different In sites are clearly resolved. Remarkably, no discernible change is observed for the superconducting gap at and around the Zn atoms. Moreover, the local density of states around Zn atoms shows little change inside the $c$-$f$ hybridization gap, which is consistent with calculations for a periodic Anderson model without local magnetic order. These results indicate that no nonsuperconducting region is induced around a Zn impurity and do not support the scenario of antiferromagnetic droplet formation suggested by indirect measurements in Cd-doped CeCoIn$_5$. These results also highlight a significant difference of the impurity effect between cuprates and CeCoIn$_5$, in both of which $d$-wave superconductivity arises from the non-Fermi liquid normal state near antiferromagnetic instabilities.
We study the doping evolution of the electronic structure in the normal phase of high-$T_c$ cuprates. Electronic structure and Fermi surface of cuprates with single CuO$_2$ layer in the unit cell like La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ have been calculated by the LDA+GTB method in the regime of strong electron correlations (SEC) and compared to ARPES and quantum oscillations data. We have found two critical concentrations, $x_{c1}$ and $x_{c2}$, where the Fermi surface topology changes. Following I.M. Lifshitz ideas of the quantum phase transitions (QPT) of the 2.5-order we discuss the concentration dependence of the low temperature thermodynamics. The behavior of the electronic specific heat $delta(C/T) sim (x - x_c)^{1/2}$ is similar to the Loram and Cooper experimental data in the vicinity of $x_{c1} approx 0.15$.