No Arabic abstract
We study the oxygen doping dependence of the equilibrium first-order melting and second-order glass transitions of vortices in Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$. Doping affects both anisotropy and disorder. Anisotropy scaling is shown to collapse the melting lines only where thermal fluctuations are dominant. Yet, in the region where disorder breaks that scaling, the glass lines are still collapsed. A quantitative fit to melting and replica symmetry breaking lines of a 2D Ginzburg-Landau model further reveals that disorder amplitude weakens with doping, but to a lesser degree than thermal fluctuations, enhancing the relative role of disorder.
The thermodynamic $H-T$ phase diagram of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_8$ was mapped by measuring local emph{equilibrium} magnetization $M(H,T)$ in presence of vortex `shaking. Two equally sharp first-order magnetization steps are revealed in a single temperature sweep, manifesting a liquid-solid-liquid sequence. In addition, a second-order glass transition line is revealed by a sharp break in the equilibrium $M(T)$ slope. The first- and second-order lines intersect at intermediate temperatures, suggesting the existence of four phases: Bragg glass and vortex crystal at low fields, glass and liquid at higher fields.
We report tunneling spectra of near optimally doped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$ intrinsic Josephson junctions with area of 0.09 $mu$m$^2$, which avoid some fundamental difficulties in the previous tunneling experiments and allow a stable temperature-dependent measurement. A d-wave Eliashberg analysis shows that the spectrum at 4.2 K can be well fitted by considering electron couplings to a bosonic magnetic resonance mode and a broad high-energy continuum. Above $T_c$, the spectra show a clear pseudogap that persists up to 230 K, and a crossover can be seen indicating two different pseudogap phases existing above $T_c$. The intrinsic electron tunneling nature is discussed in the analysis.
Fluctuating superconductivity - vestigial Cooper pairing in the resistive state of a material - is usually associated with low dimensionality, strong disorder or low carrier density. Here, we report single particle spectroscopic, thermodynamic and magnetic evidence for persistent superconducting fluctuations in heavily hole-doped cuprate superconductor Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$ ($T_c$ = 66~K) despite the high carrier density. With a sign-problem free quantum Monte Carlo calculation, we show how a partially flat band at ($pi$,0) can help enhance superconducting phase fluctuations. Finally, we discuss the implications of an anisotropic band structure on the phase-coherence-limited superconductivity in overdoped cuprates and other superconductors.
In cuprate superconductors, the doping of carriers into the parent Mott insulator induces superconductivity and various other phases whose characteristic temperatures are typically plotted versus the doping level $p$. In most materials, $p$ cannot be determined from the chemical composition, but it is derived from the superconducting transition temperature, $T_mathrm{c}$, using the assumption that $T_mathrm{c}$ dependence on doping is universal. Here, we present angle-resolved photoemission studies of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$, cleaved and annealed in vacuum or in ozone to reduce or increase the doping from the initial value corresponding to $T_mathrm{c}=91$ K. We show that $p$ can be determined from the underlying Fermi surfaces and that $in-situ$ annealing allows mapping of a wide doping regime, covering the superconducting dome and the non-superconducting phase on the overdoped side. Our results show a surprisingly smooth dependence of the inferred Fermi surface with doping. In the highly overdoped regime, the superconducting gap approaches the value of $2Delta_0=(4pm1)k_mathrm{B}T_mathrm{c}$
Establishing the presence and the nature of a quantum critical point in their phase diagram is a central enigma of the high-temperature superconducting cuprates. It could explain their pseudogap and strange metal phases, and ultimately their high superconducting temperatures. Yet, while solid evidences exist in several unconventional superconductors of ubiquitous critical fluctuations associated to a quantum critical point, in the cuprates they remain undetected until now. Here using symmetry-resolved electronic Raman scattering in the cuprate Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$, we report the observation of enhanced electronic nematic fluctuations near the endpoint of the pseudogap phase. While our data hint at the possible presence of an incipient nematic quantum critical point, the doping dependence of the nematic fluctuations deviates significantly from a canonical quantum critical scenario. The observed nematic instability rather appears to be tied to the presence of a van Hove singularity in the band structure.