No Arabic abstract
A quarter of a century after their discovery the mechanism that pairs carriers in the cuprate high-Tc superconductors (HTS) still remains uncertain. Despite this the general consensus is that it is probably magnetic in origin [1] so that the energy scale for the pairing boson is governed by J, the antiferromagnetic exchange interaction. Recent studies using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering strongly support these ideas [2]. Here as a further test we vary J (as measured by two-magnon Raman scattering) by more than 60% by changing ion sizes in the model HTS system LnA2Cu3O7-{delta} where A=(Ba,Sr) and Ln=(La, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Yb, Lu). Such changes are often referred to as internal pressure. Surprisingly, we find Tcmax anticorrelates with J where internal pressure is the implicit variable. This is the opposite to the effect of external pressure and suggests that J is not the dominant energy scale governing Tcmax.
The recent observation of quantum oscillations in underdoped high-Tc superconductors, combined with their negative Hall coefficient at low temperature, reveals that the Fermi surface of hole-doped cuprates includes a small electron pocket. This strongly suggests that the large hole Fermi surface characteristic of the overdoped regime undergoes a reconstruction caused by the onset of some order which breaks translational symmetry. Here we consider the possibility that this order is stripe order, a form of charge / spin modulation observed most clearly in materials like Eu-doped and Nd-doped LSCO. In these materials, the onset of stripe order is indeed the cause of Fermi-surface reconstruction. We identify the critical doping where this reconstruction occurs and show that the temperature dependence of transport coefficients at that doping is typical of metals at a quantum critical point. We discuss how the pseudogap phase may be a fluctuating precursor of the stripe-ordered phase.
We review recent measurements of the high-frequency dynamic magnetic susceptibility in the high-$T_c$ superconducting systems La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_4$ and YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$. Experiments were performed using the chopper spectrometers HET and MARI at the ISIS spallation source. We have placed our measurements on an absolute intensity scale, this allows systematic trends to be seen and comparisons with theory to be made. We find that the insulating S=1/2 antiferromagnetic parent compounds show a dramatic renormalization of the spin wave intensity. The effect of doping on the response is to cause broadenings in wave vector and large redistributions of spectral weight in the frequency spectrum.
Local antiferromagnetism coexists with superconductivity in the cuprates. Charge segregation provides a way to reconcile these properties. Direct evidence for modulated spin and charge densities has been found in neutron and X-ray scattering studies of Nd-doped La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4). Here we discuss the nature of the modulation, and present some new results for a Zn-doped sample. Some of the open questions concerning the connections between segregation and superconductivity are described.
We develop a model for high-Tc superconductors based on an electronic phase separation where low-and high-density domains are formed. At low temperatures this system may act as a granular superconductor forming an array of Josephson junctions. Cuprates are also known to have low superfluid densities and strong correlation effects. Both characteristics activate a negative Josephson coupling due to frustration that leads to spontaneous currents responsible for the weak ferromagnetic order. This original approach reproduces the observed onset of spontaneous magnetic signal and its dependence on the doping level.
We analyze the non-local transport properties of a d-wave superconductor coupled to metallic electrodes at nanoscale distances. We show that the non-local conductance exhibits an algebraical decay with distance rather than the exponential behavior which is found in conventional superconductors. Crossed Andreev processes, associated with electronic entanglement, are favored for certain orientations of the symmetry axes of the superconductor with respect to the leads. These properties would allow its experimental detection using present technologies.