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Register a new userDetection of a Cooper-Pair Density Wave in Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$
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The quantum condensate of Cooper-pairs forming a superconductor was originally conceived to be translationally invariant. In theory, however, pairs can exist with finite momentum $Q$ and thereby generate states with spatially modulating Cooper-pair density. While never observed directly in any superconductor, such a state has been created in ultra-cold $^{6}$Li gas. It is now widely hypothesized that the cuprate pseudogap phase contains such a pair density wave (PDW) state. Here we use nanometer resolution scanned Josephson tunneling microscopy (SJTM) to image Cooper-pair tunneling from a $d$-wave superconducting STM tip to the condensate of Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$. Condensate visualization capabilities are demonstrated directly using the Cooper-pair density variations surrounding Zn impurity atoms and at the Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$ crystal-supermodulation. Then, by using Fourier analysis of SJTM images, we discover the direct signature of a Cooper-pair density modulation at wavevectors $Q_{p} approx (0.25,0)2pi / a_{0}$;$(0,0.25)2pi / a_{0}$ in Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$. The amplitude of these modulations is ~5% of the homogenous condensate density and their form factor exhibits primarily $s$/$s$-symmetry. This phenomenology is expected within Ginzburg-Landau theory when a charge density wave with $d$-symmetry form factor and wave vector $Q_{c}=Q_{p}$ coexists with a homogeneous $d$-symmetry superconductor ; it is also encompassed by several contemporary microscopic theories for the pseudogap phase.
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Single atom manipulation within doped correlated electron systems would be highly beneficial to disentangle the influence of dopants, structural defects and crystallographic characteristics on their local electronic states. Unfortunately, their high diffusion barrier prevents conventional manipulation techniques. Here, we demonstrate the possibility to reversibly manipulate select sites in the optimally doped high temperature superconductor Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$ using the local electric field of the tip. We show that upon shifting individual Bi atoms at the surface, the spectral gap associated with superconductivity is seen to reversibly change by as much as 15 meV (~5% of the total gap size). Our toy model that captures all observed characteristics suggests the field induces lateral movement of point-like objects that create a local pairing potential in the CuO2 plane.
The Josephson Plasma Resonance is used to study the c-axis supercurrent in the superconducting state of underdoped Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+delta}$ with varying degrees of controlled point-like disorder, introduced by high-energy electron irradiation. As disorder is increased, the Josephson Plasma frequency decreases proportionally to the critical temperature. The temperature dependence of the plasma frequency does not depend on the irradiation dose, and is in quantitative agreement with a model for quantum fluctuations of the superconducting phase in the CuO$_{2}$ layers.
Anomalously high and sharp peaks in the conductance of intrinsic Josephson junctions in Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+delta}$ (Bi2212) mesas have been universally interpreted as superconducting energy gaps, but here we show they are a result of heating. This interpretation follows from a direct comparison to the equilibrium gap, $mathit Delta$, measured in break junctions on similar Bi2212 crystals. As the dissipated power increases with a greater number of junctions in the mesa, the conductance peak abruptly sharpens and its voltage decreases to well below 2$mathit Delta$. This sharpening, found in our experimental data, defies conventional intuition of heating effects on tunneling spectra, but it can be understood as an instability into a nonequilibrium two-phase coexistent state. The measured peak positions occur accurately within the voltage range that an S-shaped backbending is found in the {it calculated} current-voltage curves for spatially {it uniform} self-heating and that S-shape implies the potential for the uniform state to be unstable.
Scanning Hall probe and local Hall magnetometry measurements have been used to investigate flux distributions in large mesoscopic superconducting disks with sizes that lie near the crossover between the bulk and mesoscopic vortex regimes. Results obtained by directly mapping the magnetic induction profiles of the disks at different applied fields can be quite successfully fitted to analytic models which assume a continuous distribution of flux in the sample. At low fields, however, we do observe clear signatures of the underlying discrete vortex structure and can resolve the characteristic mesoscopic compression of vortex clusters in increasing magnetic fields. Even at higher fields, where single vortex resolution is lost, we are still able to track configurational changes in the vortex patterns, since competing vortex orders impose unmistakable signatures on local magnetisation curves as a function of the applied field. Our observations are in excellent agreement with molecular dynamics numerical simulations which lead us to a natural definition of the lengthscale for the crossover between discrete and continuum behaviours in our system.
We show that the dynamical freezing of vortex structures nucleated at diluted densities in Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8}$ samples with a dense distribution of columnar defects, $B sim 10^{-2} B_{Phi}$ with $B_{Phi}=5$,kG, results in configurations with liquid-like correlations. We propose a freezing model considering a relaxation dynamics dominated by double-kink excitations driven by the local stresses obtained directly from experimental images. With this model we estimate the relaxation barrier and the freezing temperature. We argue that the low-field frozen vortex structures nucleated in a dense distribution of columnar defects thus correspond to an out-of-equilibrium non-entangled liquid with strongly reduced mobility rather than to a snapshot of a metastable state with divergent activation barriers as for instance expected for the Bose-glass phase at equilibrium.
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