712 research outputs found
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
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
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.
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
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
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