We observed a drastic Tc suppression caused by no more than 3 at.% of Zn doped to the optimized superconductor LaFeAsO0.85 (Tc = 26 K). The electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements suggested that it is likely due to impurity scatterings rather than losing the metallic nature, seeming to support the s+/- pairing model proposed for the Fe pnictide superconductor.
Using a dynamical cluster quantum Monte Carlo approximation we investigate the d-wave superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ in the doped 2D repulsive Hubbard model with a weak inhomogeneity. The inhomogeneity is introduced in the hoppings $tp$ and $t$ in the form of a checkerboard pattern where $t$ is the hopping within a $2times2$ plaquette and $tp$ is the hopping between the plaquettes. We find inhomogeneity suppresses $T_c$. The characteristic spin excitation energy and the strength of d-wave pairing interaction decrease with decreasing $T_c$ suggesting a strong correlation between these quantities.
High temperature superconductivity emerges in the vicinity of competing strongly correlated phases. In the iron-based superconductor $Ba(Fe_{1-x}Co_{x})_{2}As_{2}$, the superconducting state shares the composition-temperature phase diagram with an electronic nematic phase and an antiferromagnetic phase that break the crystalline rotational symmetry. Symmetry considerations suggest that anisotropic strain can enhance these competing phases and thus suppress the superconductivity. Here we study the effect of anisotropic strain on the superconducting transition in single crystals of $Ba(Fe_{1-x}Co_{x})_{2}As_{2}$ through electrical transport, magnetic susceptibility, and x-ray diffraction measurements. We find that in the underdoped and near-optimally doped regions of the phase diagram, the superconducting critical temperature is rapidly suppressed by both compressive and tensile stress, and in the underdoped case this suppression is enough to induce a strain-tuned superconductor to metal quantum phase transition.
The suppression of superconductivity by nonmagnetic disorder is investigated systematically in the organic superconductor $kappa$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$Cu(NCS)$_2$. We introduce a nonmagnetic disorder arising from molecule substitution in part with deuterated BEDT-TTF or BMDT-TTF for BEDT-TTF molecules and molecular defects introduced by X-ray irradiation. A quantitative evaluation of the scattering time $tau_{rm dHvA}$ is carried out by de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect measurement. A large reduction in $T_{rm c}$ with a linear dependence on $1/tau_{rm dHvA}$ is found in the small-disorder region below $1/tau_{rm dHvA} simeq$ 1 $times$ 10$^{12}$ s$^{-1}$ in both the BMDT-TTF molecule-substituted and X-ray-irradiated samples. The observed linear relation between $T_{rm c}$ and $1/tau_{rm dHvA}$ is in agreement with the Abrikosov-Gorkov (AG) formula, at least in the small-disorder region. This observation is reasonably consistent with the unconventional superconductivity proposed thus far for the present organic superconductor. A deviation from the AG formula, however, is observed in the large-disorder region above $1/tau_{rm dHvA} simeq$ 1 $times$ 10$^{12}$ s$^{-1}$, which reproduces the previous transport study (J. G. Analytis {it et al.}: Phys. Rev. Lett. {bf 96} (2006) 177002). We present some interpretations of this deviation from the viewpoints of superconductivity and the inherent difficulties in the evaluation of scattering time.
The study of the anion ordered (TMTSF)_2ClO_4_(1-x)ReO_4_x, solid solution in the limit of a low ReO_4- substitution level (0<=x<=17%) has revealed a new and interesting phase diagram. Superconductivity is drastically suppressed as the effect of ReO_4- non magnetic point defects increases following the digamma behaviour for usual superconductors in the presence of paramagnetic impurities. Then, no long range order can be stabilized above 0.1K in a narrow window of substitution. Finally, an insulating SDW ground state in ReO_4- -rich samples is rapidly stabilized with the decrease of the potential strength leading to the doubling of the transverse periodicity. This extensive study has shown that the superconducting order parameter must change its sign over the Fermi surface.
We measure the nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) signal on the Zn site in nearly optimally doped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.92}$, when Cu is substituted by 3% of isotopically pure $^{67}$Zn. We observe that Zn creates large insulating islands, confirming two earlier conjectures: that doping provokes an orbital transition in the CuO$_2$ plane, which is locally reversed by Zn substitution, and that the islands are antiferromagnetic. Also, we find that the Zn impurity locally induces a breaking of the D$_4$ symmetry. Cluster and DFT calculations show that the D$_4$ symmetry breaking is due to the same partial lifting of degeneracy of the nearest-neighbor oxygen sites as in the LTT transition in La$_{2-x}$Ba$_x$CuO$_4$, similarly well-known to strongly suppress superconductivity. These results show that in-plane oxygen $2p^5$ orbital configurations are principally involved in the metallicity and superconductivity of all high-T$_c$ cuprates, and provide a qualitative symmetry-based constraint on the SC mechanism.