Suppression and restoration of superconductivity in PrBa2Cu3O7

I review the principal experimental findings about superconductivity, suppression thereof, and related properties of RE_{1-x}Pr_xBa_2Cu3O7 in a decision-tree manner, eliminating the models substantially incompatible with established experimental facts, eventually focussing on the pf\sigma hybridization models and listing on a verbal level the interpretations of the existing experiments as they emerge from such models.Comment: Talk given at the HTS-99 conference, Miami, 1999. Requires aipproc.sty, epsfig. V.3, correcte

Sr2_{2}VO3_{3}FeAs as Compared to Other Fe-based Superconductors

One of the most popular scenarios for the superconductivity in Fe-based superconductors (FeBSC) posits that the bosons responsible for electronic pairing are spin-fluctuations with a wave vector spanning the hole Fermi surfaces (FSs) near $\Gamma$ and the electron FSs near M points. So far all FeBSC for which neutron data are available do demonstrate such excitations, and the band structure calculations so far were finding quasi-nested FSs in all FeBSC, providing for a peak in the spin susceptibility at the desired wave vectors. However, the newest addition to the family, Sr$_{2}$VO$_{3}$FeAs, has been calculated to have a very complex FS with no visible quasi-nesting features. It was argued therefore that this material does not fall under the existing paradigm and calls for revisiting our current ideas about what is the likely cause of superconductivity in FeBSC. In this paper, I show that the visible complexity of the FS is entirely due to the V-derived electronic states. Assuming that superconductivity in Sr$_{2}$VO$_{3}$FeAs, as in the other FeBSC, originates in the FeAs layers, and the superconducting electrons are sensitive to the susceptibility of the FeAs electronic subsystem, I recalculate the bare susceptibility, weighting the electronic states with their Fe character, and obtain a susceptibility that fully supports the existing quasi-nesting model.Comment: Journal reference adde

Impurity scattering in highly anisotropic superconductors and interband sign reversal of the order parameter

We discuss various mechanisms that can lead to interband sign reversal of the order parameter in a multiband superconductor. In particular, we generalize Abrikosov-Gor'kov solution of the problem of weakly coupled superconductor with magnetic and nonmagnetic impurities on the case of arbitary order parameter anisotropy, including extreme cases as $d-$pairing or interband sign reversal of the order parameter, and show that interband scattering by magnetic impurities can stabilize an interband sign-reversal state. We discuss a possibility of such state in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_7$ in the context of various experiments: Josephson tunneling, neutron scattering, isotope effect measurements.Comment: 8 pages, 1 psfig. To be published in materials of 1996 SPIE conference "Spectroscopic Studies of Superconductors". This is a summary of papers cond-mat/9501117, cond-mat/9501118, cond-mat/9502025, cond-mat/9504076. Besides, we derive a formula for Tc suppression by magnetic and nonmagnetic impurities for arbitrary anisotrop

Competition between Electron-Phonon coupling and Spin Fluctuations in superconducting hole-doped BiOCuS

BiOCuS is a band insulator that becomes metallic upon hole doping. Superconductivity was recently reported in doped BiOCu$_{1-x}$S and attributed to spin fluctuations as a pairing mechanism. Based on first principles calculations of the electron-phonon coupling, we argue that the latter is very strong in this material, and probably drives superconductivity, which is however strongly depressed by the proximity to magnetism. We find however that BiOCu$_{1-x}$S is a quite unique compound where both a conventional phonon-driven and an unconventional triplet superconductivity are possible, and compete with each other. We argue that, in this material, it should be possible to switch from conventional to unconventional superconductivity by varying such parameters as doping or pressure