No Arabic abstract
The Nernst effect was measured in the electron-doped cuprate superconductor Pr2-xCexCuO4 (PCCO) at four concentrations, from underdoped (x=0.13) to overdoped (x=0.17), for a wide range of temperatures above the critical temperature Tc. A magnetic field H up to 15 T was used to reliably access the normal-state quasiparticle contribution to the Nernst signal, Nqp, which is subtracted from the total signal, N, to obtain the superconducting contribution, Nsc. As a function of H, Nsc peaks at a field H* whose temperature dependence obeys Hc2* ln(T/Tc), as it does in a conventional superconductor like Nb1-xSix. The doping dependence of the characteristic field scale Hc2* - shown to be closely related to the upper critical field Hc2 - tracks the dome-like dependence of Tc, showing that superconductivity is weakened below the quantum critical point where the Fermi surface is reconstructed, presumably by the onset of antiferromagnetic order. Our data at all dopings are quantitatively consistent with the theory of Gaussian superconducting fluctuations, eliminating the need to invoke unusual vortex-like excitations above Tc, and ruling out phase fluctuations as the mechanism for the fall of Tc with underdoping. We compare the properties of PCCO with those of hole-doped cuprates and conclude that the domes of Tc and Hc2 vs doping in the latter materials are also controlled predominantly by phase competition rather than phase fluctuations.
The upper critical field Hc2 is a fundamental measure of the pairing strength, yet there is no agreement on its magnitude and doping dependence in cuprate superconductors. We have used thermal conductivity as a direct probe of Hc2 in the cuprates YBa2Cu3Oy and YBa2Cu4O8 to show that there is no vortex liquid at T = 0, allowing us to use high-field resistivity measurements to map out the doping dependence of Hc2 across the phase diagram. Hc2(p) exhibits two peaks, each located at a critical point where the Fermi surface undergoes a transformation. The condensation energy obtained directly from Hc2, and previous Hc1 data, undergoes a 20-fold collapse below the higher critical point. These data provide quantitative information on the impact of competing phases in suppressing superconductivity in cuprates.
We present the magneto-transport and the thermoelectric (Seebeck and Nernst coefficient) studies of the Nb-doped Bi2Se3 topological superconductor. The angle-dependent magnetoresistance study highlights the anisotropy in the upper critical field (Hc2) with the anisotropy parameter Gamma ~1.2. We observed a gradual decrease in low-temperature Hall resistivity on the application of magnetic field like any conventional superconductor, instead of the finite Hall resistivity which was linked to the chiral superconducting phase. The estimated value of the carrier concentration (~ 10^19 cm-3) for Nb0.2Bi2Se3 is one order larger than for Bi2Se3. Doping of Nb shows a significant decrease in the Seebeck coefficient value and the estimated Fermi temperature of the three-dimensional Fermi surface at the centre of Brillouin zone in the zero-temperature limit enhances by ~4 times in comparison to pristine Bi2Se3. We have observed a large value (~2.3 micro V K-1 T-1) of Nernst coefficient for Bi2Se3 at room temperature which decreases with Nb doping ( ~0.5 micro V K-1 T-1).
The tunneling spectra of the electron-doped cuprate Pr_2-xCe_xCuO4 as a function of doping and temperature is reported. We find that the superconducting gap, delta, shows a BCS-like temperature dependence even for extremely low carrier concentrations (studied here for the first time). Moreover, delta follows the doping dependence of Tc, in strong contrast with tunneling studies of hole-doped cuprates. From our results we conclude that there is a single superconducting energy scale in the electron-doped cuprates.
The Nernst effect in metals is highly sensitive to two kinds of phase transition: superconductivity and density-wave order. The large positive Nernst signal observed in hole-doped high-Tc superconductors above their transition temperature Tc has so far been attributed to fluctuating superconductivity. Here we show that in some of these materials the large Nernst signal is in fact caused by stripe order, a form of spin / charge modulation which causes a reconstruction of the Fermi surface. In LSCO doped with Nd or Eu, the onset of stripe order causes the Nernst signal to go from small and negative to large and positive, as revealed either by lowering the hole concentration across the quantum critical point in Nd-LSCO, or lowering the temperature across the ordering temperature in Eu-LSCO. In the latter case, two separate peaks are resolved, respectively associated with the onset of stripe order at high temperature and superconductivity near Tc. This sensitivity to Fermi-surface reconstruction makes the Nernst effect a promising probe of broken symmetry in high-Tc superconductors.
From measurements of the ^{63}Cu Knight shift (K) and the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate (1/T_{1}) under magnetic fields from zero up to 28 T in the slightly overdoped superconductor TlSr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{6.8} (T_{c}=68 K), we find that the pseudogap behavior, {em i.e.}, the reductions of 1/T_{1}T and K above T_{c} from the values expected from the normal state at high T, is strongly field dependent and follows a scaling relation. We show that this scaling is consistent with the effects of the Cooper pair density fluctuations. The present finding contrasts sharply with the pseudogap property reported previously in the underdoped regime where no field effect was seen up to 23.2 T. The implications are discussed.