We estimated the ratios of $^{63}$Cu hyperfine coupling constants in the double-layer high-$T_mathrm{c}$ superconductor HgBa$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{6+delta}$ from the anisotropies in Cu nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rates and spin Knight shifts to study the nature of the ultraslow fluctuations causing the $T_2$ anomaly in the Cu nuclear spin-echo decay. The ultraslow fluctuations may come from uniform magnetic fluctuations spread around the wave vector $q$ = 0, otherwise the electric origins.
Using resonant X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, we study charge correlations and lattice dynamics in two model cuprates, HgBa$_{2}$CuO$_{4+delta}$ and HgBa$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{6+delta}$. We observe a maximum of the characteristic charge order temperature around the same hole concentration ($p approx 0.09$) in both compounds, and concomitant pronounced anomalies in the lattice dynamics that involve the motion of atoms in and/or adjacent to the CuO$_2$ layers. These anomalies are already present at room temperature, and therefore precede the formation of the static charge correlations, and we attribute them to an instability of the CuO$_2$ layers. Our finding implies that the charge order in the cuprates is an emergent phenomenon, driven by a fundamental variation in both lattice and electronic properties as a function of doping.
Phonons in nearly optimally doped HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+delta}$ were studied by inelastic X-ray scattering. The dispersion of the low energy modes is well described by a shell model, while the Cu-O bond stretching mode at high energy shows strong softening towards the zone boundary, which deviates strongly from the model. This seems to be common in the hole-doped high-$T_mathrm{c}$ superconducting cuprates, and, based on this work, not related to a lattice distortion specific to each material.
We examine the redistribution of the in-plane optical spectral weight in the normal and superconducting state in tri-layer bbb (Bi2223) near optimal doping ($T_c$ = 110 K) on a single crystal via infrared reflectivity and spectroscopic ellipsometry. We report the temperature dependence of the low-frequency integrated spectral weight $W(Omega_c)$ for different values of the cutoff energy $Omega_c$. Two different model-independent analyses consistently show that for $Omega_c$ = 1 eV, which is below the charge transfer gap, $W(Omega_c)$ increases below $T_c$, implying the lowering of the kinetic energy of the holes. This is opposite to the BCS scenario, but it follows the same trend observed in the bi-layer compound bb (Bi2212). The size of this effect is larger in Bi2223 than in Bi2212, approximately scaling with the critical temperature. In the normal state, the temperature dependence of $W(Omega_c)$ is close to $T^2$ up to 300 K.
Here we report extensive ultrafast time-resolved reflectivity experiments on overdoped Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$Ca$_{1-x}$Y$_x$Cu$_{2}$O$_{8+delta}$ single crystals (T$_C$=78 K) aimed to clarify the nature of the superconducting-to-normal-state photoinduced phase transition. The experimental data show the lack of the quasiparticles decay time divergence at the fluence required to induce this phase transition, in contrast to the thermally-driven phase transition observed at T$_C$ and at variance with recently reported photoinduced charge-density-wave and spin-density-wave to metal phase transitions. Our data demonstrate the non-thermal character of the superconducting-to-normal-state photoinduced phase transition. The data have been analyzed using an ad-hoc developed time-dependent Rothwarf-Taylor model, opening the question on the order of this non-equilibrium phase transition.
A weakening of superconductivity upon substitution of Cu by Zn (0.5~1 %) is observed in a high-T_c cuprate, Ca_{2-x}Na_xCuO2Cl2, near the hole concentration of 1/8 per Cu. The superconducting transition temperature and its volume fraction, estimated by magnetic susceptibility, exhibit a sizable anomaly for x=0.12~0.14, where the slowing down of Cu spin fluctuations below 5 K is demonstrated by muon spin relaxation experiments. These observations are in close resemblance to other typical cuprates including YBa2Cu3O_{7-d}, and Bi2Sr2Ca_{1-x}Y_xCu2O_{8+d}, providing further evidence that Zn-induced stripe correlation is a universal feature of high-T_c cuprate superconductors common to that of La_{2-x}A_{x}CuO4 (A=Ba, Sr).