130 research outputs found
siRNAs generated by recombinant human Dicer induce specific and significant but target site-independent gene silencing in human cells
Antiferromagnetic phase transition in four-layered high-T_c superconductors Ba_2Ca_3Cu_4O_8(F_yO_{1-y})_2 with T_c=55-102 K: Cu- and F-NMR studies
We report on magnetic characteristics in four-layered high-T_c
superconductors Ba_2Ca_3Cu_4O_8(F_yO_{1-y})_2 with apical fluorine through Cu-
and F-NMR measurements. The substitution of oxygen for fluorine at the apical
site increases the carrier density (N_h) and T_c from 55 K up to 102 K. The NMR
measurements reveal that antiferromagnetic order, which can uniformly coexist
with superconductivity, exists up to N_h = 0.15, which is somewhat smaller than
N_h = 0.17 being the quantum critical point (QCP) for five-layered compounds.
The fact that the QCP for the four-layered compounds moves to a region of lower
carrier density than for five-layered ones ensures that the decrease in the
number of CuO_2 layers makes an interlayer magnetic coupling weaker.Comment: 7 pages, 6 gigures, Submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp
Planar CuO_2 hole density estimation in multilayered high-T_c cuprates
We report that planar CuO_2 hole densities in high-T_c cuprates are
consistently determined by the Cu-NMR Knight shift. In single- and bi-layered
cuprates, it is demonstrated that the spin part of the Knight shift K_s(300 K)
at room temperature monotonically increases with the hole density from
underdoped to overdoped regions, suggesting that the relationship of K_s(300 K)
vs. p is a reliable measure to determine p. The validity of this K_s(300 K)-p
relationship is confirmed by the investigation of the p-dependencies of
hyperfine magnetic fields and of spin susceptibility for single- and bi-layered
cuprates with tetragonal symmetry. Moreover, the analyses are compared with the
NMR data on three-layered Ba_2Ca_2Cu_3O_6(F,O)_2, HgBa_2Ca_2Cu_3O_{8+delta},
and five-layered HgBa_2Ca_4Cu_5O_{12+delta}, which suggests the general
applicability of the K_s(300 K)-p relationship to multilayered compounds with
more than three CuO_2 planes. We remark that the measurement of K_s(300 K)
enables us to separately estimate p for each CuO_2 plane in multilayered
compounds, where doped hole carriers are inequivalent between outer CuO_2
planes and inner CuO_2 planes.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 2 Tables, to be published in Physical Review
Diamagnetism above Tc in underdoped Bi2.2Sr1.8Ca2Cu3O10+d
Single crystals of (Bi2223) with were grown by a traveling solvent floating
zone method in order to investigate the superconducting properties of highly
underdoped Bi2223.Grown crystals were characterized by X-ray diffraction, DC
susceptibility and resistivity measurements, confirming Bi2223 to be the main
phase.The crystals were annealed under various oxygen partial pressures to
adjust their carrier densities from optimally doped to highly underdoped.The
fluctuation diamagnetic component above the superconducting transition
temperature extracted from the anisotropic normal state
susceptibilities () and ()
was found to increase with underdoping, suggesting a decrease in the
superconducting dimensionality and/or increase in the fluctuating vortex liquid
region.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, corrected fig.4 and references, published in J.
Phys. Soc. Jpn. 79, 114711 (2010
Vortex lattice structure in BaFe2(As0.67P0.33)2 by the small-angle neutron scattering technique
We have observed a magnetic vortex lattice (VL) in BaFe2(As_{0.67}P_{0.33})2
(BFAP) single crystals by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). With the field
along the c-axis, a nearly isotropic hexagonal VL was formed in the field range
from 1 to 16 T, which is a record for this technique in the pnictides, and no
symmetry changes in the VL were observed. The temperature-dependence of the VL
signal was measured and confirms the presence of (non d-wave) nodes in the
superconducting gap structure for measurements at 5 T and below. The nodal
effects were suppressed at high fields. At low fields, a VL reorientation
transition was observed between 1 T and 3 T, with the VL orientation changing
by 45{\deg}. Below 1 T, the VL structure was strongly affected by pinning and
the diffraction pattern had a fourfold symmetry. We suggest that this (and
possibly also the VL reorientation) is due to pinning to defects aligned with
the crystal structure, rather than being intrinsic.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Two-Dimensional Nature of Four-Layer Superconductors by Inequivalent Hole Distribution
The magnetization of the four-layer superconductor
CuBa_{2}Ca_{3}Cu_4O_{12-\delta} with T_c\simeq117 K is presented. The
high-field magnetization around T_c(H) follows the exact two-dimensional
scaling function given by Te\v{s}anovi\'{c} and Andreev. This feature is
contrary to the inference that the interlayer coupling becomes strong if the
number of CuO_2 planes in a unit cell increases. Also, the fluctuation-induced
susceptibility in the low-field region was analyzed by using the modified
Lawrence-Doniach model. The effective number of independently fluctuating CuO_2
layers per unit cell, g_{\rm eff}, turned out to be \simeq 2 rather than 4,
which indicated that two among the four CuO_2 layers were in states far from
their optimal doping levels. This result could explain why
CuBa_{2}Ca_{3}Cu_4O_{12-\delta} shows two-dimensional behavior.Comment: 5 pages and 4 figure
Flux pinning in (1111) iron-pnictide superconducting crystals
Local magnetic measurements are used to quantitatively characterize
heterogeneity and flux line pinning in PrFeAsO_1-y and NdFeAs(O,F)
superconducting single crystals. In spite of spatial fluctuations of the
critical current density on the macroscopic scale, it is shown that the major
contribution comes from collective pinning of vortex lines by microscopic
defects by the mean-free path fluctuation mechanism. The defect density
extracted from experiment corresponds to the dopant atom density, which means
that dopant atoms play an important role both in vortex pinning and in
quasiparticle scattering. In the studied underdoped PrFeAsO_1-y and NdFeAs(O,F)
crystals, there is a background of strong pinning, which we attribute to
spatial variations of the dopant atom density on the scale of a few dozen to
one hundred nm. These variations do not go beyond 5% - we therefore do not find
any evidence for coexistence of the superconducting and the antiferromagnetic
phase. The critical current density in sub-T fields is characterized by the
presence of a peak effect, the location of which in the (B,T)-plane is
consistent with an order-disorder transition of the vortex lattice.Comment: 12 pages, submitted to Phys Rev.
The pairing state in KFe2As2 studied by measurements of the magnetic vortex lattice
Understanding the mechanism and symmetry of electron pairing in iron-based
superconductors represents an important challenge in condensed matter physics
[1-3]. The observation of magnetic flux lines - "vortices" - in a
superconductor can contribute to this issue, because the spatial variation of
magnetic field reflects the pairing. Unlike many other iron pnictides, our
KFe2As2 crystals have very weak vortex pinning, allowing
small-angle-neutron-scattering (SANS) observations of the intrinsic vortex
lattice (VL). We observe nearly isotropic hexagonal packing of vortices,
without VL-symmetry transitions up to high fields along the fourfold c-axis of
the crystals, indicating rather small anisotropy of the superconducting
properties around this axis. This rules out gap nodes parallel to the c-axis,
and thus d-wave and also anisotropic s-wave pairing [2, 3]. The strong
temperature-dependence of the intensity down to T<<Tc indicates either widely
different full gaps on different Fermi surface sheets, or nodal lines
perpendicular to the axis.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Charge Imbalance Effects on Interlayer Hopping and Fermi Surfaces in Multilayered High-T_c Cuprates
We study doping dependence of interlayer hoppings, t_\perp, in multilayered
cuprates with four or more CuO_2 planes in a unit cell. When the double
occupancy is forbidden in the plane, an effective amplitude of t_\perp in the
Gutzwiller approximation is shown to be proportional to the square root of the
product of doping rates in adjacent two planes, i.e., t^eff_\perp \propto
t_\perp \sqrt{\delta_1\delta_2}, where \delta_1 and \delta_2 represent the
doping rates of the two planes. More than three-layered cuprates have two kinds
of \cuo planes, i.e., inner- and outer planes (IP and OP), resulting in two
different values of t^eff_{\perp}, i.e., t^eff_\perp 1 \propto t_\perp
\sqrt{\delta_IP \delta_IP} between IP's, and t^eff_\perp 2 \propto t_\perp
\sqrt{\delta_IP \delta_OP} between IP and OP. Fermi surfaces are calculated in
the four-layered t-t'-t''-J model by the mean-field theory. The order
parameters, the renormalization factor of t_\perp, and the site-potential
making the charge imbalance between IP and OP are self-consistently determined
for several doping rates. We show the interlayer splitting of the Fermi
surfaces, which may be observed in the angle resolved photoemission
spectroscopy measurement.Comment: Some typographical errors are revised. Journal of Physical Society of
Japan, Vol.75, No.3, in pres
The Influence of Neutron Irradiation on (B0.65C0.35)Ba1.4Sr0.6Ca2Cu3Oz Superconducting Phase: the Role of the Grain Edge
Using the transport and magnetization measurements the influence of neutron
irradiation at a fluence of 5x10 n cm on
(B0.65C0.35)Ba1.4Sr0.6Ca2Cu3Oz has been investigated. The neutron irradiation
was found to decrease critical temperature and transport critical current
density, increase the residual and normal state resistivity, and improve the
intragranular critical current density with 1.6x10 A/cm (at 77.3K
and in the applied field up to 160 kA m) and \Delta Mirr/\Delta Mnonirr ratio
(up to factor of 3) at highest field used for investigation. The field
dependence of this ratio, which is below the unity at very low field but higher
than 1 at high fields, correlated with the shape of the hystertic loops as well
as with the change of the transport parameters after irradiation suggests the
role of the irradiation induced effects on the grain edges. We discuss these
effects in the framework of the Bean-Livingstone surface barriers and
geometrical barriers.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
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