598 research outputs found
Magnetic Phase Diagram of the Hole-doped CaNaCuOCl Cuprate Superconductor
We report on the magnetic phase diagram of a hole-doped cuprate
CaNaCuOCl, which is free from buckling of CuO
planes, determined by muon spin rotation and relaxation. It is characterized by
a quasi-static spin glass-like phase over a range of sodium concentration
(), which is held between long range antiferromagnetic
(AF) phase () and superconducting phase where the system is
non-magnetic for . The obtained phase diagram qualitatively agrees
well with that commonly found for hole-doped high-\tc cuprates, strongly
suggesting that the incomplete suppression of the AF order for is an
essential feature of the hole-doped cuprates.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Visualizing the emergence of the pseudogap state and the evolution to superconductivity in a lightly hole-doped Mott insulator
Superconductivity emerges from the cuprate antiferromagnetic Mott state with
hole doping. The resulting electronic structure is not understood, although
changes in the state of oxygen atoms appear paramount. Hole doping first
destroys the Mott state yielding a weak insulator where electrons localize only
at low temperatures without a full energy gap. At higher doping, the
'pseudogap', a weakly conducting state with an anisotropic energy gap and
intra-unit-cell breaking of 90\degree-rotational (C4v) symmetry appears.
However, a direct visualization of the emergence of these phenomena with
increasing hole density has never been achieved. Here we report atomic-scale
imaging of electronic structure evolution from the weak-insulator through the
emergence of the pseudogap to the superconducting state in Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2. The
spectral signature of the pseudogap emerges at lowest doping from a weakly
insulating but C4v-symmetric matrix exhibiting a distinct spectral shape. At
slightly higher hole-density, nanoscale regions exhibiting pseudogap spectra
and 180\degree-rotational (C2v) symmetry form unidirectional clusters within
the C4v-symmetric matrix. Thus, hole-doping proceeds by the appearance of
nanoscale clusters of localized holes within which the broken-symmetry
pseudogap state is stabilized. A fundamentally two-component electronic
structure11 then exists in Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2 until the C2v-symmetric clusters
touch at higher doping, and the long-range superconductivity appears.Comment: See the Nature Physics website for the published version available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/Nphys232
Saddle-point van Hove singularity and the phase diagram of high-Tc cuprates
We examine the generic phase behavior of high-Tc cuprate superconductors in
terms a universal van Hove singularity in the strongly overdoped region. Using
a rigid ARPES-derived dispersion we solve the BCS gap equation and show that
the pairing interaction or pairing energy cutoff must be a rapidly declining
function of doping. This result is prejudicial to a phonon-based pairing
interaction and more consistent with a magnetic or magnetically enhanced
interaction.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Physical Review
Evolution of the electronic excitation spectrum with strongly diminishing hole-density in superconducting Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+\delta}
A complete knowledge of its excitation spectrum could greatly benefit efforts
to understand the unusual form of superconductivity occurring in the lightly
hole-doped copper-oxides. Here we use tunnelling spectroscopy to measure the
T\to 0 spectrum of electronic excitations N(E) over a wide range of
hole-density p in superconducting Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+/delta}. We
introduce a parameterization for N(E) based upon an anisotropic energy-gap
/Delta (\vec k)=/Delta_{1}(Cos(k_{x})-Cos(k_{y}))/2 plus an effective
scattering rate which varies linearly with energy /Gamma_{2}(E) . We
demonstrate that this form of N(E) allows successful fitting of differential
tunnelling conductance spectra throughout much of the
Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+/delta} phase diagram. The resulting average
/Delta_{1} values rise with falling p along the familiar trajectory of
excitations to the 'pseudogap' energy, while the key scattering rate
/Gamma_{2}^{*}=/Gamma_{2}(E=/Delta_{1}) increases from below ~1meV to a value
approaching 25meV as the system is underdoped from p~16% to p<10%. Thus, a
single, particle-hole symmetric, anisotropic energy-gap, in combination with a
strongly energy and doping dependent effective scattering rate, can describe
the spectra without recourse to another ordered state. Nevertheless we also
observe two distinct and diverging energy scales in the system: the energy-gap
maximum /Delta_{1} and a lower energy scale /Delta_{0} separating the spatially
homogeneous and heterogeneous electronic structures.Comment: High resolution version available at:
http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~jcdavis/files/Alldredge-condmat08010087-highres.pd
Charge dynamics of Ca_{2-x}Na_{x}CuO_{2}Cl_{2} as a correlated electron system with the ideal tetragonal lattice
We report the reflectivity and the resistivity measurement of
Ca_{2-x}Na_{x}CuO_{2}Cl_{2} (CNCOC), which has a single-CuO2-plane lattice with
no orthorhombic distortion. The doping dependence of the in-plane optical
conductivity spectra for CNCOC is qualitatively the same to those of other
cuprates, but a slight difference between CNCOC and LSCO, i.e., the absence of
the 1.5 eV peak in CNCOC, can be attributed to the smaller charge-stripe
instability in CNCOC. The temperature dependence of the optical onductivity
spectra of CNCOC has been analyzed both by the two-component model
(Drude+Lorentzian) and by the one-component model (extended-Drude analysis).
The latter analysis gives a universal trend of the scattering rate Gamma(omega)
with doping. It was also found that Gamma(omega) shows a saturation behavior at
high frequencies, whose origin is the same as that of resistivity saturation at
high temperatures.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Spectroscopic Fingerprint of Phase-Incoherent Superconductivity in the Cuprate Pseudogap State
A possible explanation for the existence of the cuprate "pseudogap" state is
that it is a d-wave superconductor without quantum phase rigidity. Transport
and thermodynamic studies provide compelling evidence that supports this
proposal, but few spectroscopic explorations of it have been made. One
spectroscopic signature of d-wave superconductivity is the particle-hole
symmetric "octet" of dispersive Bogoliubov quasiparticle interference
modulations. Here we report on this octet's evolution from low temperatures to
well into the underdoped pseudogap regime. No pronounced changes occur in the
octet phenomenology at the superconductor's critical temperature Tc, and it
survives up to at least temperature T ~ 1.5Tc. In the pseudogap regime, we
observe the detailed phenomenology that was theoretically predicted for
quasiparticle interference in a phase-incoherent d-wave superconductor. Thus,
our results not only provide spectroscopic evidence to confirm and extend the
transport and thermodynamics studies, but they also open the way for
spectroscopic explorations of phase fluctuation rates, their effects on the
Fermi arc, and the fundamental source of the phase fluctuations that suppress
superconductivity in underdoped cuprates.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figure
Quasi-particle interference and superconducting gap in a high-temperature superconductor Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2
High-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity is ubiquitous in the
cuprates containing CuO2 planes but each cuprate has its own character. The
study of the material dependence of the d-wave superconducting gap (SG) should
provide important insights into the mechanism of high-Tc. However, because of
the 'pseudogap' phenomenon, it is often unclear whether the energy gaps
observed by spectroscopic techniques really represent the SG. Here, we report
spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy (SI-STM) studies of
nearly-optimally-doped Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2 (Na-CCOC) with Tc = 25 ~ 28 K. They
enable us to observe the quasi-particle interference (QPI) effect in this
material, through which unambiguous new information on the SG is obtained. The
analysis of QPI in Na-CCOC reveals that the SG dispersion near the gap node is
almost identical to that of Bi2Sr2CaCu2Oy (Bi2212) at the same doping level,
while Tc of Bi2212 is 3 times higher than that of Na-CCOC. We also find that SG
in Na-CCOC is confined in narrower energy and momentum ranges than Bi2212. This
explains at least in part the remarkable material dependence of TcComment: 13pages, 4fig
Broken rotational symmetry in the pseudogap phase of a high-Tc superconductor
The nature of the pseudogap phase is a central problem in the quest to
understand high-Tc cuprate superconductors. A fundamental question is what
symmetries are broken when that phase sets in below a temperature T*. There is
evidence from both polarized neutron diffraction and polar Kerr effect
measurements that time- reversal symmetry is broken, but at temperatures that
differ significantly. Broken rotational symmetry was detected by both
resistivity and inelastic neutron scattering at low doping and by scanning
tunnelling spectroscopy at low temperature, but with no clear connection to T*.
Here we report the observation of a large in-plane anisotropy of the Nernst
effect in YBa2Cu3Oy that sets in precisely at T*, throughout the doping phase
diagram. We show that the CuO chains of the orthorhombic lattice are not
responsible for this anisotropy, which is therefore an intrinsic property of
the CuO2 planes. We conclude that the pseudogap phase is an electronic state
which strongly breaks four-fold rotational symmetry. This narrows the range of
possible states considerably, pointing to stripe or nematic orders.Comment: Published version. Journal reference and DOI adde
Selfsimilar solutions in a sector for a quasilinear parabolic equation
We study a two-point free boundary problem in a sector for a quasilinear
parabolic equation. The boundary conditions are assumed to be spatially and
temporally "self-similar" in a special way. We prove the existence, uniqueness
and asymptotic stability of an expanding solution which is self-similar at
discrete times. We also study the existence and uniqueness of a shrinking
solution which is self-similar at discrete times.Comment: 23 page
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