The high magnetic field phase diagram of the electron-doped infinite layer
high-temperature superconducting (high-T_c) compound Sr_{0.9}La_{0.1}CuO_2 was
probed by means of penetration depth and magnetization measurements in pulsed
fields to 60 T. An anisotropy ratio of 8 was detected for the upper critical
fields with H parallel (H_{c2}^{ab}) and perpendicular (H_{c2}^c) to the CuO_2
planes, with H_{c2}^{ab} extrapolating to near the Pauli paramagnetic limit of
160 T. The longer superconducting coherence length than the lattice constant
along the c-axis indicates that the orbital degrees of freedom of the pairing
wavefunction are three dimensional. By contrast, low-field magnetization and
specific heat measurements of Sr_{0.9}Gd_{0.1}CuO_2 indicate a coexistence of
bulk s-wave superconductivity with large moment Gd paramagnetism close to the
CuO_2 planes, suggesting a strong confinement of the spin degrees of freedom of
the Cooper pair to the CuO_2 planes. The region between H_{c2}^{ab} and the
irreversibility line in the magnetization, H_{irr}^{ab}, is anomalously large
for an electron-doped high-T_c cuprate, suggesting the existence of additional
quantum fluctuations perhaps due to a competing spin-density wave order.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B, Rapid Communications
(2004). Corresponding author: Nai-Chang Yeh (E-mail: [email protected]