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Register a new userAbsence of gross inhomogeneity in HTS cuprates
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Recent scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) studies on Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$ (Bi-2212) revealed the presence of severe inhomogeneity with length scale $L_0 approx xi_0$, the coherence length. Other studies have been interpreted in terms of mesoscale or nanoscale phase segregation. Here we analyze heat capacity and NMR data on Bi-2212 and (Y,Ca)Ba$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-delta}$ and find no evidence for phase segregation or gross inhomogeneity. For Bi-2212 the coherence scale $L_0$ increases with doping from 5 to 17$xi_0$ and the hole density inhomogeneity decreases from 0.028 to 0.005 holes/Cu. We conclude that STM measurements considerably overstate the inhomogeneity in bulk Bi-2212.
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The low-energy excitation spectrum of HTS cuprates is examined in the light of thermodynamic, transport, quasiparticle and spin properties. Changes in the thermodynamic spectrum associated with the normal-state pseudogap disappear abruptly at a critical doping state, $p_{crit}$ = 0.19 holes per Cu. Moreover, ARPES data at 100K show that heavily damped quasiparticles (QP) near ($pi$,0) suddenly recover long lifetimes at $p_{crit}$, reflecting an abrupt loss of scattering from AF spin fluctuations. This picture is confirmed by $mu$SR zero-field relaxation measurements which indicate the presence of a novel quantum glass transition at $p_{crit}$. Consistent with this picture resistivity studies on thin films of Y$_{0.7}$Ca$_{0.3}$Ba$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-delta}$ reveal linear behavior confined to a V-shaped domain focussed on $p_{crit}$ at $T$=0. The generic phase behavior of the cuprates may be governed by quantum critical fluctuations above $p_{crit}$ and the pseudogap appears to be caused by short-range AF correlations.
Despite more than three decades of tireless efforts, the nature of high-temperature superconductivity (HTS) remains a mystery. A recently proposed long-distance effective field theory, accounting for all the universal features of HTS and the equally mysterious pseudogap phase, related them to the coexistence of a charge condensate with a condensate of dyons, particles carrying both magnetic and electric charges. Central to this picture are magnetic monopoles emerging in the proximity of the topological quantum superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) that dominates the HTS phase diagram. However, the mechanism responsible for spatially localized electron pairing, characteristic of HTS, remains a puzzle. Here we show that real-space, localized electron pairing is mediated by magnetic monopoles and occurs at temperatures well above the superconducting transition temperature $T_{mathrm c}$. Localized electron pairing promotes the formation of superconducting granules connected by Josephson links. Global superconductivity sets in when these granules form an infinite cluster at $T_{mathrm c}$ which is estimated to fall in the range from hundred to thousand Kelvins. Our findings pave the way to tailoring materials with elevated superconducting transition temperatures.
Applications of the extended critical state model are considered. The trapped magnetic field, the penetration field and the field dependence of the critical current density are analysed. The critical current density and the trapped field in superconducting grains depend on the grain size. Asymmetry of the hysteresis curves relative to the M = 0 axis is related to the scale of the current circulation.
Electronic functionalities in materials from silicon to transition metal oxides are to a large extent controlled by defects and their relative arrangement. Outstanding examples are the oxides of copper, where defect order is correlated with their high superconducting transition temperatures. The oxygen defect order can be highly inhomogeneous, even in optimal superconducting samples, which raises the question of the nature of the sample regions where the order does not exist but which nonetheless form the glue binding the ordered regions together. Here we use scanning X-ray microdiffraction (with beam 300 nm in diameter) to show that for La2CuO4+y, the glue regions contain incommensurate modulated local lattice distortions, whose spatial extent is most pronounced for the best superconducting samples. For an underdoped single crystal with mobile oxygen interstitials in the spacer La2O2+y layers intercalated between the CuO2 layers, the incommensurate modulated local lattice distortions form droplets anticorrelated with the ordered oxygen interstitials, and whose spatial extent is most pronounced for the best superconducting samples. In this simplest of high temperature superconductors, there are therefore not one, but two networks of ordered defects which can be tuned to achieve optimal superconductivity. For a given stoichiometry, the highest transition temperature is obtained when both the ordered oxygen and lattice defects form fractal patterns, as opposed to appearing in isolated spots. We speculate that the relationship between material complexity and superconducting transition temperature Tc is actually underpinned by a fundamental relation between Tc and the distribution of ordered defect networks supported by the materials.
The thermoelectric power S(T) of single-layer Bi2Sr2CuO6+d is studied as a function of oxygen doping in the strongly overdoped region of the phase diagram (T, d). As other physical properties in this region, diffusion thermopower Sdiff(T) also shows an important deviation from conventional Fermi liquid behaviour. This departure from T-linear S(T) dependence together with the results of susceptibility on the same samples suggest that the origin of the observed non-metallic behaviour is the existence of a singularity in the density of states near the Fermi level. The doping and temperature dependence of themopower is compared with a tight-binding band model.
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