1,031 research outputs found
Emergent defect states as a source of resistivity anisotropy in the nematic phase of iron pnictides
We consider the role of potential scatterers in the nematic phase of Fe-based
superconductors above the transition temperature to the (pi,0) magnetic state
but below the orthorhombic structural transition. The anisotropic spin
fluctuations in this region can be frozen by disorder, to create elongated
magnetic droplets whose anisotropy grows as the magnetic transition is
approached. Such states act as strong anisotropic defect potentials which
scatter with much higher probability perpendicular to their length than
parallel, although the actual crystal symmetry breaking is tiny. We calculate
the scattering potentials, relaxation rates, and conductivity in this region,
and show that such emergent defect states are essential for the transport
anisotropy observed in experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Local electronic structure near oxygen dopants in BSCCO-2212: a window on the high-Tc pair mechanism?
The cuprate material BSCCO-2212 is believed to be doped by a combination of
cation switching and excess oxygen. The interstitial oxygen dopants are of
particular interest because scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) experiments
have shown that they are positively correlated with the local value of the
superconducting gap, and calculations suggest that the fundamental attraction
between electrons is modulated locally. In this work, we use density functional
theory to try to ascertain which locations in the crystal are energetically
most favorable for the O dopant atoms, and how the surrounding cage of atoms
deforms. Our results provide support for the identification of STM resonances
at -1eV with dopant interstitial O atoms, and show how the local electronic
structure is modified nearby.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Scattering by impurity-induced order parameter ``holes'' in d-wave superconductors
Nonmagnetic impurities in d-wave superconductors cause strong local
suppressions of the order parameter. We investigate the observable effects of
the scatterigng off such suppressions in bulk samples by treating the order
parameter "hole" as a pointlike off-diagonal scatterer treated within a
self-consistent t-matrix approximation. Strong scattering potentials lead to a
finite-energy spectral feature in the d-wave "impurity band", the observable
effects of which include enhanced low-temperature microwave power absorption
and a stronger sensitivity of the London penetration depth to disorder than
found previously in simpler ``dirty'' d-wave models.Comment: 5 pp. Revtex including 4 postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Disorder-induced topological change of the superconducting gap structure in iron pnictides
In superconductors with unconventional pairing mechanisms, the energy gap in
the excitation spectrum often has nodes, which allow quasiparticle excitations
at low energies. In many cases, e.g. -wave cuprate superconductors, the
position and topology of nodes are imposed by the symmetry, and thus the
presence of gapless excitations is protected against disorder. Here we report
on the observation of distinct changes in the gap structure of iron-pnictide
superconductors with increasing impurity scattering. By the successive
introduction of nonmagnetic point defects into BaFe(AsP)
crystals via electron irradiation, we find from the low-temperature penetration
depth measurements that the nodal state changes to a nodeless state with fully
gapped excitations. Moreover, under further irradiation the gapped state
evolves into another gapless state, providing bulk evidence of unconventional
sign-changing -wave superconductivity. This demonstrates that the topology
of the superconducting gap can be controlled by disorder, which is a strikingly
unique feature of iron pnictides.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Theory of Thermal Conductivity in YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}
We calculate the electronic thermal conductivity in a d-wave superconductor,
including both the effect of impurity scattering and inelastic scattering by
antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations. We analyze existing experiments,
particularly with regard to the question of the relative importance of
electronic and phononic contributions to the heat current, and to the influence
of disorder on low-temperature properties. We find that phonons dominate heat
transport near T_c, but that electrons are responsible for most of the peak
observed in clean samples, in agreement with a recent analysis of Krishana et
al. In agreement with recent data on YBa_2(Cu_1-xZn_x)_3O_7-\delta the peak
position is found to vary nonmonotonically with disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Tc suppression and resistivity in cuprates with out of plane defects
Recent experiments introducing controlled disorder into optimally doped
cuprate superconductors by both electron irradiation and chemical substitution
have found unusual behavior in the rate of suppression of the critical
temperature Tc vs. increase in residual resistivity. We show here that the
unexpected discovery that the rate of Tc suppression vs. resistivity is
stronger for out-of-plane than for in-plane impurities may be explained by
consistent calculation of both Tc and resistivity if the potential scattering
is assumed to be nearly forward in nature. For realistic models of impurity
potentials, we further show that significant deviations from the universal
Abrikosov-Gor'kov Tc suppression behavior may be expected for out of plane
impurities.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Universal zero-frequency Raman slope in a d-wave superconductor
It is known that for an unconventional superconductor with nodes in the gap,
the in-plane microwave or dc conductivity saturates at low temperatures to a
universal value independent of the impurity concentration. We demonstrate that
a similar feature can be accessed using channel-dependent Raman scattering. It
is found that, for a -wave superconductor, the slope of
low-temperature Raman intensity at zero frequency is universal in the
and channels, but not in the channel. Moreover, as opposed to
the microwave conductivity, universal Raman slopes are sensitive not only to
the existence of a node, but also to different pairing states and should allow
one to distinguish between such pairing states.Comment: 5 page
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