Doping evolution of the electronic specific heat coefficient in slightly-doped La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals

Detailed doping dependence of the electronic specific heat coefficient gamma is studied for La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) single crystals in the slightly-doped regime. We find that gamma systematically increases with doping, and furthermore, even for the samples in the antiferromagnetic (AF) regime, gamma already acquires finite value and grows with x. This suggests that finite electronic density of states (DOS) is created in the AF regime where the transport shows strong localization at low temperatures, and this means the system is not a real insulator with a clear gap even though it still keeps long range AF order.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (LT25 proceeding

Magic Doping Fractions in High-Temperature Superconductors

We report hole-doping dependence of the in-plane resistivity \rho_{ab} in a cuprate superconductor La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4}, carefully examined using a series of high-quality single crystals. Our detailed measurements find a tendency towards charge ordering at particular rational hole doping fractions of 1/16, 3/32, 1/8, and 3/16. This observation appears to suggest a specific form of charge order and is most consistent with the recent theoretical prediction of the checkerboard-type ordering of the Cooper pairs at rational doping fractions x = (2m+1)/2^n, with integers m and n.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure, resubmitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. The Tc vs. x diagram has been added and the discussions have been modified to focus more on the experimental result

Hybrid Simulation between Molecular Dynamics and Binary Collision Approximation Codes for Hydrogen injection onto Carbon Materials

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation with modified Brenner's reactive empirical bond order (REBO) potential is a powerful tool to investigate plasma wall interaction on divertor plates in a nuclear fusion device. However, MD simulation box's size is less than several nm for the performance of a computer. To extend the size of the MD simulation, we develop a hybrid simulation code between MD code using REBO potential and binary collision approximation (BCA) code. Using the BCA code instead of computing all particles with a high kinetic energy for every step in the MD simulation, considerable computation time is saved. By demonstrating a hydrogen atom injection on a graphite by the hybrid simulation code, it is found that the hybrid simulation code works efficiently in a large simulation box.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Microscopic analysis of the chemical reaction between Fe(Te,Se) thin films and underlying CaF2_2

To understand the chemical reaction at the interface of materials, we performed a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation in four types of Fe(Te,Se) superconducting thin films prepared on different types of substrates: CaF2 substrate, CaF2 substrate with a CaF2 buffer layer, CaF2 substrate with a FeSe buffer layer, and a LaAlO3 substrate with a CaF2 buffer layer. Based on the energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX) analysis, we found possible interdiffusion between fluorine and selenium that has a strong influence on the superconductivity in Fe(Te,Se) films. The chemical interdiffusion also plays a significant role in the variation of the lattice parameters. The lattice parameters of the Fe(Te,Se) thin films are primarily determined by the chemical substitution of anions, and the lattice mismatch only plays a secondary role.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figur

Electronic inhomogeneity and competing phases in electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4

We use neutron scattering to demonstrate that electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4 in the underdoped regime is electronically phase separated in the ground state, showing the coexistence of a superconducting phase with a three-dimensional antiferromagnetically ordered phase and a quasi-two-dimensional spin density wave modulation. The Neel temperature of both antiferromagnetic phases decreases linearly with increasing superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and vanishes when optimal superconductivity is achieved. These results indicate that the electron-doped copper oxides are close to a quantum critical point, where the delicate energetic balance between different competing states leads to microscopic heterogeneity.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. B as a rapid communicatio

Electron interactions and charge ordering in La2−x_{2-x}Srx_xCuO4_4

We present results of inelastic light scattering experiments on single-crystalline La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_4$ in the doping range $0.00 \le x=p \le 0.30$ and Tl$_2$Ba$_2$CuO$_{6+\delta}$ at $p=0.20$ and $p=0.24$. The main emphasis is placed on the response of electronic excitations in the antiferromagnetic phase, in the pseudogap range, in the superconducting state, and in the essentially normal metallic state at $x \ge 0.26$, where no superconductivity could be observed. In most of the cases we compare B$_{1g}$ and B$_{2g}$ spectra which project out electronic properties close to $(\pi,0)$ and $(\pi/2, \pi/2)$, respectively. In the channel of electron-hole excitations we find universal behavior in B$_{2g}$ symmetry as long as the material exhibits superconductivity at low temperature. In contrast, there is a strong doping dependence in B$_{1g}$ symmetry: (i) In the doping range $0.20 \le p \le 0.25$ we observe rapid changes of shape and temperature dependence of the spectra. (ii) In La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_4$ new structures appear for $x < 0.13$ which are superposed on the electron-hole continuum. The temperature dependence as well as model calculations support an interpretation in terms of charge-ordering fluctuations. For $x \le 0.05$ the response from fluctuations disappears at B$_{1g}$ and appears at B$_{2g}$ symmetry in full agreement with the orientation change of stripes found by neutron scattering. While, with a grain of salt, the particle-hole continuum is universal for all cuprates the response from fluctuating charge order in the range $0.05 \le p < 0.16$ is so far found only in La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_4$. We conclude that La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_4$ is close to static charge order and, for this reason, may have a suppressed $T_c$.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figure

Constant effective mass across the phase diagram of high-Tc_{c} cuprates

We investigate the hole dynamics in two prototypical high temperature superconducting systems: La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$ and YBa$_{2}$Cu$_{3}$O$_{y}$ using a combination of DC transport and infrared spectroscopy. By exploring the effective spectral weight obtained with optics in conjunction with DC Hall results we find that the transition to the Mott insulating state in these systems is of the "vanishing carrier number" type since we observe no substantial enhancement of the mass as one proceeds to undoped phases. Further, the effective mass remains constant across the entire underdoped regime of the phase diagram. We discuss the implications of these results for the understanding of both transport phenomena and pairing mechanism in high-T$_{c}$ systems.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure