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Register a new userNon-destructive characterisation of dopant spatial distribution in cuprate superconductors
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Proper characterisation of investigated samples is vital when studying superconductivity as impurities and doping inhomogeneities can affect the physical properties of the measured system. We present a method where a polarised neutron imaging setup utilises the precession of spin-polarised neutrons in the presence of a trapped field in the superconducting sample to spatially map out the critical temperature for the phase transition between superconducting and non-superconducting states. We demonstrate this method on a superconducting crystal of the prototypical high-temperature superconductor (La,Sr)$_2$CuO$_4$. The results, which are backed up by complementary magnetic susceptibility measurements, show that the method is able to resolve minor variations in the transition temperature across the length of the LSCO crystal, caused by inhomogeneities in strontium doping.
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Comparison of recent experimental STM data with single-impurity and many-impurity Bogoliubov-de Gennes calculations strongly suggests that random out-of-plane dopant atoms in cuprates modulate the pair interaction locally. This type of disorder is crucial to understanding the nanoscale electronic structure inhomogeneity observed in BSCCO-2212, and can reproduce observed correlations between the positions of impurity atoms and various aspects of the local density of states such as the gap magnitude and the height of the coherence peaks. Our results imply that each dopant atom modulates the pair interaction on a length scale of order one lattice constant.
Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) studies reveal long-range (~100 nm) spatial homogeneity in optimally and underdoped superconducting YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-delta} (YBCO) single crystals and thin films, and macroscopic spatial modulations in overdoped (Y_{0.7}Ca_{0.3})Ba_2Cu_3O_{7-delta} (Ca-YBCO) epitaxial films. In contrast, STS on an optimally doped YBa_2(Cu_{0.9934}Zn_{0.0026}Mg_{0.004})_3O_{6.9} single crystal exhibits strong spatial modulations and suppression of superconductivity over a microscopic scale near the Zn or Mg impurity sites, and the global pairing potential is also reduced relative to that of optimally doped YBCO, suggesting strong pair-breaking effects of the non-magnetic impurities. The spectral characteristics are consistent with d_{x^2-y^2} pairing symmetry for the optimally and underdoped YBCO, and with (d_{x^2-y^2}+s) for the overdoped Ca-YBCO. The doping-dependent pairing symmetry suggests interesting changes in the superconducting ground state, and is consistent with the presence of nodal quasiparticles for all doping levels. The maximum energy gap Delta_d is non-monotonic with the doping level, while the (2Delta_d/k_BT_c) ratio increases with decreasing doping. The similarities and contrasts between the spectra of YBCO and of Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+x} (Bi-2212) are discussed.
Geometrical Berry phase is recognized as having profound implications for the properties of electronic systems. Over the last decade, Berry phase has been essential to our understanding of new materials, including graphene and topological insulators. The Berry phase can be accessed via its contribution to the phase mismatch in quantum oscillation experiments, where electrons accumulate a phase as they traverse closed cyclotron orbits in momentum space. The high-temperature cuprate superconductors are a class of materials where the Berry phase is thus far unknown despite the large body of existing quantum oscillations data. In this report we present a systematic Berry phase analysis of Shubnikov - de Haas measurements on the hole-doped cuprates YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{y}$, YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$, HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4 + delta}$, and the electron-doped cuprate Nd$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$. For the hole-doped materials, a trivial Berry phase of 0 mod $2pi$ is systematically observed whereas the electron-doped Nd$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$ exhibits a significant non-zero Berry phase. These observations set constraints on the nature of the high-field normal state of the cuprates and points towards contrasting behaviour between hole-doped and electron-doped materials. We discuss this difference in light of recent developments related to charge density-wave and broken time-reversal symmetry states.
The characteristic features of the renormalization of the electrons in the bilayer cuprate superconductors are investigated within the kinetic-energy driven superconductivity. It is shown that the quasiparticle excitation spectrum is split into its bonding and antibonding components due to the presence of the bilayer coupling, with each component that is independent. However, in the underdoped and optimally doped regimes, although the bonding and antibonding electron Fermi surface (EFS) contours deriving from the bonding and antibonding layers are truncated to form the bonding and antibonding Fermi arcs, almost all spectral weights in the bonding and antibonding Fermi arcs are reduced to the tips of the bonding and antibonding Fermi arcs, which in this case coincide with the bonding and antibonding hot spots. These hot spots connected by the scattering wave vectors ${bf q}_{i} $ construct an octet scattering model, and then the enhancement of the quasiparticle scattering processes with the scattering wave vectors ${bf q}_{i}$ is confirmed via the result of the autocorrelation of the ARPES spectral intensities. Moreover, the peak-dip-hump (PDH) structure developed in each component of the quasiparticle excitation spectrum along the corresponding EFS is directly related with the peak structure in the quasiparticle scattering rate except for at around the hot spots, where the PDH structure is caused mainly by the bilayer coupling. Although the kink in the quasiparticle dispersion is present all around EFS, when the momentum moves away from the node to the antinode, the kink energy smoothly decreases, while the dispersion kink becomes more pronounced, and in particular, near the cut close to the antinode, develops into a break separating of the fasting dispersing high-energy part of the quasiparticle excitation spectrum from the slower dispersing low-energy part.
The origin of the exceptionally strong superconductivity of cuprates remains a subject of debate after more than two decades of investigation. Here we follow a new lead: The onset temperature for superconductivity scales with the strength of the anomalous normal-state scattering that makes the resistivity linear in temperature. The same correlation between linear resistivity and Tc is found in organic superconductors, for which pairing is known to come from fluctuations of a nearby antiferromagnetic phase, and in pnictide superconductors, for which an antiferromagnetic scenario is also likely. In the cuprates, the question is whether the pseudogap phase plays the corresponding role, with its fluctuations responsible for pairing and scattering. We review recent studies that shed light on this phase - its boundary, its quantum critical point, and its broken symmetries. The emerging picture is that of a phase with spin-density-wave order and fluctuations, in broad analogy with organic, pnictide, and heavy-fermion superconductors.
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