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Register a new userUniversal superconducting precursor in the cuprates
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The nature of the superconducting (SC) precursor in the cuprates has been the subject of intense interest, with profound implications for both the normal and the SC states. Different experimental probes have led to vastly disparate conclusions on the temperature range of superconducting fluctuations. The main challenges have been to separate the SC response from complex normal-state behavior, and to distinguish the underlying behavior of the quintessential CuO$_{2}$ layers from compound-specific properties. Here we reveal remarkably simple and universal behavior of the SC precursor using torque magnetometry, a unique thermodynamic probe with extremely high sensitivity to SC diamagnetism. We comprehensively study four distinct cuprate compounds: single-CuO$_{2}$-layer La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$ (LSCO), Bi$_{2}$(Sr,La)$_{2}$CuO$_{6+delta}$ (Bi2201) and HgBa$_{2}$CuO$_{4+delta}$ (Hg1201), and double-layer Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$Ca$_{0.95}$Y$_{0.05}$CuO$_{8+delta}$ (Bi2212). Our approach, which focuses on the nonlinear diamagnetic response, completely removes normal-state contributions and thus allows us to trace the diamagnetic signal above Tc with great precision. We find that SC diamagnetism vanishes in an unusual, yet surprisingly simple exponential manner, marked by a universal temperature scale that is independent of compound and Tc. We discuss the distinct possibility that this unusual behavior signifies the proliferation of SC clusters as a result of the intrinsic inhomogeneity known to be an inherent property of the cuprates.
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A pivotal challenge posed by unconventional superconductors is to unravel how superconductivity emerges upon cooling from the generally complex normal state. Some of the most prominent unconventional superconductors are oxides: strontium titanate, strontium ruthenate, and the cuprates exhibit greatly different superconducting transition temperatures $T_c$, and although their respective superconducting pairing mechanisms remain unknown, they are thought to differ as well. Here we use nonlinear magnetic response, a probe that is uniquely sensitive to the superconducting precursor, to uncover remarkable universal behavior in these three distinct classes of superconductors. We find unusual exponential temperature dependence of the diamagnetic response above the transition temperature $T_c$, with a characteristic temperature scale that strongly varies with $T_c$. We correlate this scale with the sensitivity of $T_c$ to local stress, and show that it is influenced by intentionally-induced structural disorder. The universal behavior is therefore caused by intrinsic, self-organized structural inhomogeneity, inherent to the oxides perovskite-based structure. The prevalence of such inhomogeneity has far-reaching implications for the interpretation of electronic properties of perovskite-related oxides in general.
Overdoped high-temperature cuprate superconductors have been widely believed to be described by the physics of d-wave BCS-like superconductivity. However, recent measurements indicate that as the doping is increased, the superfluid density decreases smoothly to zero rather than increasing as expected by BCS theory in the absence of disorder. Here, we combine time-domain THz spectroscopy with kHz range mutual inductance measurements on the same overdoped La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$ films to determine both the superfluid and the uncondensed carrier density as a function of doping. A significant fraction of the carriers remains uncondensed in a wide Drude-like peak even as $Trightarrow0$, which, when taken with the linear-in-temperature superfluid density, is inconsistent with existing theories for the role of disorder in suppressing the superfluid density in a d-wave superconductor. Our almost eight orders of magnitude in measurement frequency range gives us a unique look at the low frequency spectral weight distribution, which may suggest the presence of quantum phase fluctuations as the critical doping is approached.
We report characterization results by energy dispersive x-ray analysis and AC-susceptibility for a statistically relevant number of single layer Bi-cuprate single crystals. We show that the two structurally quite different modifications of the single-layered Bi-cuprate, namely (La,Pb=0.4)-Bi2201 and La-Bi2201, exhibit anomalies in the superconducting transition temperature at certain hole doping, e.g. at 1/8 holes per Cu. These doping values agree well with the magic doping fractions found in the temperature dependent resistance of LSCO by Komiya et al. This new set of findings suggests that all these anomalies are generic for the hole-doped high-temperature superconductors.
A pivotal step toward understanding unconventional superconductors would be to decipher how superconductivity emerges from the unusual normal state upon cooling. In the cuprates, traces of superconducting pairing appear above the macroscopic transition temperature $T_c$, yet extensive investigation has led to disparate conclusions. The main difficulty has been the separation of superconducting contributions from complex normal state behaviour. Here we avoid this problem by measuring the nonlinear conductivity, an observable that is zero in the normal state. We uncover for several representative cuprates that the nonlinear conductivity vanishes exponentially above $T_c$, both with temperature and magnetic field, and exhibits temperature-scaling characterized by a nearly universal scale $T_0$. Attempts to model the response with the frequently evoked Ginzburg-Landau theory are unsuccessful. Instead, our findings are captured by a simple percolation model that can also explain other properties of the cuprates. We thus resolve a long-standing conundrum by showing that the emergence of superconductivity in the cuprates is dominated by their inherent inhomogeneity.
We propose a microscopical theory of superconductivity in CuO$_2$ layer within the effective two-band Hubbard model in the strong correlation limit. By applying a projection technique for the matrix Green function in terms of the Hubbard operators, the Dyson equation is derived. It is proved that in the mean-field approximation d-wave superconducting pairing mediated by the conventional exchange interaction occurs. Allowing for the self-energy corrections due to kinematic interaction, a spin-fluctuation d-wave pairing is also obtained. $Tsb{c}$ dependence on the hole concentration and $bf k$-dependence of the gap function are derived. The results show that the exchange interaction (which stems from the interband hopping) prevails over the kinematic interaction (which stems from the intraband hopping).
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