Origin of the metal-to-insulator crossover in cuprate superconductors
F. Laliberte, W. Tabis, S. Badoux, B. Vignolle, D. Destraz, N. Momono, T. Kurosawa, K. Yamada, H. Takagi, N. Doiron-Leyraud, C. Proust, Louis Taillefer
备注：
16 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary material (12 pages, 7 figures)
Superconductivity in cuprates peaks in the doping regime between a metal at high p and an insulator at low p. Understanding how the material evolves from metal to insulator is a fundamental and open question. Early studies in high magnetic fields revealed that below some critical doping an insulator-like upturn appears in the resistivity of cuprates at low temperature, but its origin has remained a puzzle. Here we propose that this 'metal-to-insulator crossover' is due to a drop in carrier density n associated with the onset of the pseudogap phase at a critical doping p*. We use high-field resistivity measurements on LSCO to show that the upturns are quantitatively consistent with a drop from n=1+p above p* to n=p below p*, in agreement with high-field Hall data in YBCO. We demonstrate how previously reported upturns in the resistivity of LSCO, YBCO and Nd-LSCO are explained by the same universal mechanism: a drop in carrier density by 1.0 hole per Cu atom.
The metal-insulator crossover of the in-plane resistivity upon temperature decrease, recently observed in several classes of cuprate superconductors, when a strong magnetic field suppresses the superconductivity, is explained using the $U(1)\times SU(2)$ Chern-Simons gauge field theory. The origin of this crossover is the same as that for a similar phenomenon observed in heavily underdoped cuprates without magnetic field. It is due to the interplay between the diffusive motion of the charge carriers and the ``peculiar'' localization effect due to short-range antiferromagnetic order. We also ca…
Combining (1) the universal correlations between $T_{c}$ and $n_{s}/m^{*}$ (superconducting carrier density / effective mass) and (2) the pseudo-gap behavior in the underdoped region, we obtain a picture to describe superconductivity in cuprate systems in evolution from Bose-Einstein to BCS condensation. Overdoped and Zn-substituted cuprate systems show signatures of reduced superfluid density in a microscopic phase separation. Scaling of $T_{c}$ to the superfluid volume density $n_{s}$ in all these cases indicate importance of Bose condensation.
Most of the proposed models of high-temperature superconductivity (HTSC) are based on the short-range electron-electron correlations or/and on a short-range electron-phonon interaction. However, in the cuprates the screening is poor due to a low carrier density, layered crystal structure, and high ionicity of the lattice. We develop further the bipolaron model of HTSC, which explicitly takes into account the long-range origin of all interactions. The long-range electron-phonon (Froehlich) interaction binds carriers into real space pairs (small bipolarons) with surprisingly low mass but suffici…
The Kohn-Luttinger mechanism for superconductivity is investigated in a model for the electron doped cuprates. The symmetry of the order parameter of the superconducting phase is determined as a function of the geometry of the Fermi surface together with the structure of the electron-hole susceptibility. It is found to remain d_{x^2-y^2} wave within a large doping range. The shape of the gap anisotropy evolves with doping, with the maximum gap moving away from (pi ,0), in good agreement with recent experiments. As the shift of the maximum increases, a crossover to d_{xy}-symmetry is found.
A central question in the high temperature cuprate superconductors is the fate of the parent Mott insulator upon charge doping. Here we use scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate the local electronic structure of lightly doped cuprate in the antiferromagnetic insulating regime. We show that the doped charge induces a spectral weight transfer from the high energy Hubbard bands to the low energy in-gap states. With increasing doping, a V-shaped density of state suppression occurs at the Fermi level, which is accompanied by the emergence of checkerboard charge order. The new STM perspective…
The enigmatic scaling behaviour of the normal state properties of the high Tc cuprates has been explained by assuming that a crossover from the two- dimensional Heisenberg (2D-H) to the one-dimensional spin ladder (1D-SL) regime takes place at temperature T=T*. For T<T* stripe formation results in the quantum 1D transport with the characteristic inelastic length L_phi being fully controlled by the magnetic correlation length xi_m of the even-chain SL, whereas for T> T* the 2D quantum transport is realized with L_ϕgoverned by the 2D-H correlations L_phi=xi_m=exp(J/T)$. Therefore, the pseudogap …
A unified theory is outlined for the cuprates, Fe-based, and related superconductors. Their low-energy excitations are approached in terms of auxiliary particles representing combinations of atomic-like electron configurations, and the introduction of a Lagrange Bose field enables their treatment as bosons or fermions. This theory correctly describes the observed phase diagram of the cuprates, including the non-Fermi-liquid to FL crossover in the normal state, the existence of Fermi arcs below T^* and of "marginal-FL" behavior above it. The anomalous behavior of numerous physical quantities is…
We have studied the influence of disorder induced by electron irradiation on the normal state resistivities $ρ(T)$ of optimally and underdoped YBa2CuOx single crystals, using pulsed magnetic fields up to 60T to completely restore the normal state. We evidence that point defect disorder induces low T upturns of rho(T) which saturate in some cases at low T in large applied fields as would be expected for a Kondo-like magnetic response. Moreover the magnitude of the upturns is related to the residual resistivity, that is to the concentration of defects and/or their nanoscale morphology. These upt…
A theory of Kondo lattices is applied to the crossover between local-moment magnetism and itinerant-electron magnetism in the t-J model on a quasi-two dimensional lattice. The Kondo temperature T_K is defined as a characteristic temperature or energy scale of local quantum spin fluctuations. Magnetism with T_N >> T_K, where T_N is the N\eel temperature, is characterized as local-moment one, while magnetism with T_N << T_K is characterized as itinerant-electron one. The Kondo temperature, which also gives a measure of the strength of the quenching of magnetic moments, is renormalized by the Foc…
We propose that Resistivity Curvature Mapping (RCM) based on the in-plane resistivity data is a useful way to objectively draw an electronic phase diagrams of high-T_c cuprates, where various crossovers are important. In particular, the pseudogap crossover line can be conveniently determined by RCM. We show experimental phase diagrams obtained by RCM for Bi_{2}Sr_{2-z}La_{z}CuO_{6+δ}, La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4}, and YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{y}, and demonstrate the universal nature of the pseudogap crossover. Intriguingly, the electronic crossover near optimum doping depicted by RCM appears to occur rather a…
Considering both "large-U" and "small-U" orbitals, it is found that the carriers of the high-Tc cuprates are polaron-like "stripons" carrying charge and located on stripe-like inhomogeneities, "quasi-electrons" carrying charge and spin, and "svivons" carrying spin and lattice distortion. This is shown to result in the observed anomalous spectroscopic and transport properties of the cuprates. Pairing results from transitions between pair states of stripons and quasi-electrons through the exchange of svivons, and a crossover occurs between BCS and Bose-Einstein condensation behaviors.
By studying the optical conductivity of BSLCO and YCBCO, we show that the metal-to-insulator transition (MIT) in these hole-doped cuprates is driven by the opening of a small gap at low T in the far infrared. Its width is consistent with the observations of Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy in other cuprates, along the nodal line of the k-space. The gap forms as the Drude term turns into a far-infrared absorption, whose peak frequency can be approximately predicted on the basis of a Mott-like transition. Another band in the mid infrared softens with doping but is less sensitive to the …
We present a comparative study of Nernst effect and resistivity in underdoped samples of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CuO$_{6+δ}$ and La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_4$. The Nernst effect presents a peak in a region of the H-T diagram where resistivity shows a non-metallic temperature dependence. Our results illustrate that the mechanism of dissipation in the mixed state of underdoped cuprates is poorly understood. Large quantum superconducting fluctuations and vanishing vortex viscosity are among suggested explanations for an enhanced Nernst signal close to the superconductor-insulator boundary.
The quasiparticles of the high-T_c cuprates are found to consist of: polaron-like "stripons" carrying charge, and associated primarily with large-U orbitals in stripe-like inhomogeneities; "quasielectrons" carrying charge and spin, and associated with hybridized small-U and large-U orbitals; and "svivons" carrying spin and lattice distortion. It is shown that this electronic structure leads to the systematic behavior of spectroscopic and transport properties of the cuprates. High-T_c pairing results from transitions between pair states of stripons and quasielectrons through the exchange of svi…
The most intriguing observation of cuprate experiments is most likely the metal-insulator-crossover (MIC), seen in the underdome region of the temperature-doping phase diagram of copper-oxides under a strong magnetic field, when the superconductivity is suppressed. This MIC, which results in such phenomena as heat conductivity downturn, anomalous Lorentz ratio, nonlinear entropy, insulating ground state, nematicity- and stripe-phases and Fermi pockets, reveals the nonconventional dielectric property of the pseudogap-normal phase. Since conventional superconductivity appears from a conducting n…
The issues of single particle coherence and its interplay with singlet pairing are studied within the slave boson gauge theory of a doped Mott insulator. Prior work by one of us (T. Senthil, arXiv:0804.1555) showed that the coherence scale below which Landau quasiparticles emerge is parametrically lower than that identified in the slave boson mean field theory. Here we study the resulting new non-fermi liquid intermediate temperature regime characterized by a single particle scattering rate that is linear in temperature ($T$). In the presence of a d-wave pair amplitude this leads to a pseudoga…
The heat carriers responsible for the unexpectedly large thermal Hall conductivity of the cuprate Mott insulator La$_2$CuO$_4$ were recently shown to be phonons. However, the mechanism by which phonons in cuprates acquire chirality in a magnetic field is still unknown. Here, we report a similar thermal Hall conductivity in two cuprate Mott insulators with significantly different crystal structures and magnetic orders - Nd$_2$CuO$_4$ and Sr$_2$CuO$_2$Cl$_2$ - and show that two potential mechanisms can be excluded - the scattering of phonons by rare-earth impurities and by structural domains. Ou…
We present GW based self-energy calculations for the state of coexisting spin-density wave and d-wave superconductivity in a series of cuprate superconductors. In these systems, the spin resonance spectrum exhibits the typical `hour-glass' form, whose upward and downward dispersion branches come from the gapped spin-wave and magnetic scattering of Cooper pairs, respectively. We show that the crossover between these two different dispersion features leads to an abrupt change in slope in the quasiparticle self-energy, and hence the low-energy kink commences in the single-particle quasiparticle s…
The concept of a surface d- and bulk s-symmetry in cuprate superconductors is applied to recent small-angle neutron-scattering results. These show a change of hexagonal to square vortex lattice as a function of the magnetic field along the c-axis. Identifying the hexagonal lattice with s- and the square with d-symmetry, the crossover distance from the surface d to the bulk s perpendicular to the c-axis is estimated to be 35 nm for LSCO and roughly 7 nm for YBCO, both at optimum doping. The crossover along the c-axis has to be of only a few layers distance to reconcile tunneling, photoemission …
We present a study of Nernst effect in underdoped $La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4$ in magnetic fields as high as 28T. At high fields, a sizeable Nernst signal was found to persist in presence of a field-induced non-metallic resistivity. By simultaneously measuring resistivity and the Nernst coefficient, we extract the entropy of vortex cores in the vicinity of this field-induced superconductor-insulator transition. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the thermo-electric Hall angle provides strong constraints on the possible origins of the finite Nernst signal above $T_c$, as recently discovered by Xu e…
Motivated by the widespread experimental observations of nematicity in strongly underdoped cuprate superconductors, we investigate the possibility of enhanced nematic fluctuations in the vicinity of a Mott insulator that displays Néel-type antiferromagnetic order. By performing a strong-coupling expansion of an effective model that contains both Cu-$d$ and O-$p$ orbitals on the square lattice, we demonstrate that quadrupolar fluctuations in the $p$-orbitals inevitably generate a biquadratic coupling between the spins of the $d$-orbitals. The key point revealed by our classical Monte Carlo simu…
High temperature superconductivity is a property of doped antiferromagnetic insulators. The electronic structure is inhomogeneous on short length and time scales, and, as the temperature decreases, it evolves via two crossovers, before long range superconducting order is achieved. Except for overdoped materials, pairing and phase coherence occur at different temperatures, and phase fluctuations determine both T$_c$ and the temperature dependence of the superfluid density for a wide range of doping. A mechanism for obtaining a high pairing scale in a short coherence length material with a stron…
In the present paper II, we will gain an understanding of the nematicity, insulating ground state (IGS), nematicity to stripe phase transition, Fermi pockets evolution, and resistivity temperature upturn, as to be metal - insulator (fermion-boson)- crossover (MIC) phenomena for the pseudogap (PG) region of cuprates. While in the paper I [1], we obtained an understanding of the observed heat conductivity downturn, anomalous Lorentz ratio, insulator resistivity boundary, nonlinear entropy as manifestations of the same MIC. The recently observed nematicity and hidden magnetic order are related to…
We review our angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) results on different layered oxide superconductors, and on their insulating parent compounds. The low energy excitations are discussed with emphasis on some of the most recent issues, such as the Fermi surface and remnant Fermi surface, the pseudogap and d-wave-like dispersion, and lastly the signatures in the ARPES spectra of multiple electronic components, many body effects, and the superfluid density. We will focus on systematic changes in the electronic structure which may be relevant to the development of a comprehensive pict…
Among all experimental observations of cuprate physics, the metal-insulator-crossover (MIC), seen in the pseudogap (PG) region of the temperature-doping phase diagram of copper-oxides under a strong magnetic field, when the superconductivity is suppressed, is most likely the most intriguing one. Since it was expected that the PG-normal state for these materials, as for conventional superconductors, is conducting. This MIC, revealed in such phenomena as heat conductivity downturn, anomalous Lorentz ratio, insulator resistivity boundary, nonlinear entropy, resistivity temperature upturn, insulat…
The spin-charge gauge approach to consider the metal-insulator crossover (MIC) and other anomalous transport properties in High-T$_c$ cuprates is briefly reviewed. A U(1) field gauging the global charge symmetry and an SU(2) field gauging the global spin-rotational symmetry are introduced to study the two-dimensional $t-J$ model in the limit $t\gg J$. The MIC as a clue to the understanding of the ``pseudogap'' (PG) phase, is attributed to the competition between the short-range antiferromagnetic order and dissipative motion of charge carriers coupled to the slave-particle gauge field. The comp…
Short-range charge-density wave correlations are ubiquitous in underdoped cuprates. They are largely confined to the copper-oxygen planes and typically oscillate out of phase from one unit cell to the next in the c-direction. Recently, it was found that a considerably longer-range charge-density wave order develops in YBCO above a sharply defined crossover magnetic field. This order is more three-dimensional and is in-phase along the c-axis. Here, we show that such behavior is a consequence of the conflicting ordering tendencies induced by the disorder potential and the Coulomb interaction, wh…
We show that the resistivity in each phase of the High-Tc cuprates is a special case of a general expression derived from the Kubo formula. We obtain, in particular, the T-linear behavior in the strange metal (SM) and upper pseudogap (PG) phases, the pure $T^2$, Fermi liquid (FL) behavior observed in the strongly overdoped regime as well as the $T^{1+δ}$ behavior that interpolates both in the crossover. We calculate the coefficients: a) of $T$ in the linear regime and show that it is proportional to the PG temperature $T^*(x)$; b) of the $T^2$-term in the FL regime, without adjusting any param…
To decipher the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity, it is important to know how the superconducting pairing emerges from the unusual normal states of cuprate superconductors, including pseudogap, anomalous Fermi liquid and strange metal (SM). A long-standing issue under debate is how the superconducting pairing is formed and condensed in the SM phase because the superconducting transition temperature is the highest in this phase. Here, we report the first experimental observation of a pressure-induced crossover from two- to three-dimensional superconducting states in the optimally…
The parent compounds of the high-temperature cuprate superconductors are Mott insulators. It has been generally agreed that understanding the physics of the doped Mott insulators is essential to understanding the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity. A natural starting point is to elucidate the basic electronic structure of the parent compound. Here we report comprehensive high resolution angle-resolved photoemission measurements on Ca$_2$CuO$_2$Cl$_2$, a Mott insulator and a prototypical parent compound of the cuprates. Multiple underlying Fermi surface sheets are revealed for the …
We propose a mechanism for high critical temperature (T_c) in the coexistent phase of superconducting- (SC) and antiferromagnetic (AF) CuO_2 planes in multilayered cuprates. The Josephson coupling between the SC planes separated by an AF insulator (Mott insulator) is calculated perturbatively up to the fourth order in terms of the hopping integral between adjacent CuO_2 planes. It is shown that the AF exchange splitting in the AF plane suppresses the so-called pi-Josephson coupling, and the long-ranged 0-Josephson coupling leads to coexistence with a rather high value of T_c.
The nature of the pseudogap phase of cuprates remains a major puzzle. Although there are indications that this phase breaks various symmetries, there is no consensus on its fundamental nature. Although Fermi-surface, transport and thermodynamic signatures of the pseudogap phase are reminiscent of a transition into a phase with antiferromagnetic order, there is no evidence for an associated long-range magnetic order. Here we report measurements of the thermal Hall conductivity $κ_{\rm xy}$ in the normal state of four different cuprates (Nd-LSCO, Eu-LSCO, LSCO, and Bi2201) and show that a large …
We study the superconducting transition in a two-dimensional electron gas with strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We assume low electron density, such that only the majority spin band participates in the transition. We show that the superconducting transition follows either the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), or the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) scenarios, depending on the position of the chemical potential with respect to the bottom of the majority band, and the strength of the Coulomb repulsion between electrons. Hence, the BEC-BCS crossover in this system can be driven either by the cha…
Although the mechanism of superconductivity in the cuprates remains elusive, it is generally agreed that at the heart of the problem is the physics of doped Mott insulators. The cuprate parent compound has one unpaired electron per Cu site, and is predicted by band theory to be a half-filled metal. The strong onsite Coulomb repulsion, however, prohibits electron hopping between neighboring sites and leads to a Mott insulator ground state with antiferromagnetic (AF) ordering. Charge carriers doped into the CuO2 plane destroy the insulating phase and superconductivity emerges as the carrier dens…
In underdoped cuprates, only a portion of the Fermi surface survives as Fermi arcs due to pseudogap opening. In hole-doped La$_{2}$CuO$_4$, we have deduced the "coherence temperature" $T_{coh}$ of quasi-particles on the Fermi arc above which the broadened leading edge position in angle-integrated photoemission spectra is shifted away from the Fermi level and the quasi-particle concept starts to lose its meaning. $T_{coh}$ is found to rapidly increase with hole doping, an opposite behavior to the pseudogap temperature $T^*$. The superconducting dome is thus located below both $T^*$ and $T_{coh}…
The single-site dynamical mean-field approximation is used to solve a model of high-Tc cuprate superconductors which includes both d_{x^2-y^2} and d_{3z^2-r^2} orbitals on the Cu as well as the relevant oxygen states. Both T (with apical oxygen) and T' (without apical oxygen) crystal structures are considered. In both phases, inclusion of the d_{3z^2-r^2} orbital is found to broaden the range of stability of the charge transfer insulating phase. For equal charge transfer energies and interaction strengths, the T' phase is found to be less strongly correlated than the T phase. For both structur…
We describe a reversible, spatially-controlled doping method for cuprate films. The technique has been used to create superconductor-antiferromagnetic insulator-superconductor (S-AFI-S) junctions and optimally doped superconductor-underdoped superconductor-optimally doped superconductor (OS-US-OS) cuprate structures. We demonstrate how the S-AFI-S structure can be employed to reliably measure the transport properties of the antiferromagnetic insulator region at cryogenic temperatures using the superconductors as seamless electrical leads. We also discuss applied and fundamental issues which ma…
BCS-BEC crossover driven by small Fermi pockets of a high-Tc cuprate superconductor
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Tokyo University of Science（东京理科大学）；Shizuoka University（静冈大学）；Diamond Light Source Ltd（钻石光源有限公司）；Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory（斯坦福同步辐射光源，SLAC国家加速器实验室）
We explore theoretically the notion that the underdoped cuprates may be viewed as doped U(1) spin liquid Mott insulators. We pursue a conceptually clear version of this idea that naturally incorporates several aspects of the phenomenology of the cuprates. We argue that the low doping region may be fruitfully discussed in terms of the universal physics associated with a chemical potential tuned Mott transition between a U(1) spin liquid insulator and a d-wave superconductor. A precise characterization of the deconfinement in the U(1) spin liquid is provided by the emergence of a conserved gauge…
We propose a unified approach for describing the carrier localization, metal-insulator transitions (MITs) and stripe formation in high-$T_c$ cuprates. The ground-state energy of a carrier interacting with a defect and with lattice vibrations is calculated within the continuum model and adiabatic approximation. At low doping levels, hole carriers in $\rm{La}$-based systems with large-radius dopants are localized near the dopants with the formation of hydrogenic impurity centers.
We theoretically investigate twisted structures where each layer is composed of a strongly correlated material. In particular, we study a twisted t-J model of cuprate multilayers within the slave-boson mean field theory. This treatment encompasses the Mott physics at small doping and self consistently generates d-wave pairing. Furthermore, including the correct inter-layer tunneling form factor consistent with the symmetry of the Cu $d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbital proves to be crucial for the phase diagram. We find spontaneous time reversal (T) breaking around twist angle of $45^\circ$, although only in…
Copper oxide high temperature superconductors universally exhibit multiple forms of electronically ordered phases that break the native translational symmetry of the CuO2 planes. The interplay between these orders and the superconducting ground state, as well as how they arise through doping a Mott insulator, is essential to decode the mechanisms of high-temperature superconductivity. Over the years, various forms of electronic liquid crystal phases including charge/spin stripes and incommensurate charge-density-waves (CDWs) were found to emerge out of a correlated metallic ground state in und…
On the basis of the observed short coherence lengths in the cuprates we argue that a BCS-Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover approach is an appropriate starting point for correcting the mean field approach of BCS and, thereby, for addressing pseudogap phenomena in these materials. Our version of the BCS-BEC approach is based on a particular Greens' function decoupling scheme which should be differentiated from others in the literature, and which yields (i) the Leggett crossover ground state (for all coupling constants g, at T=0) and (ii) BCS theory (for all $ T \leq T_c$ over a range of…
We use scanning tunneling microscopy to study the temperature evolution of electronic structure in Ca3Cu2O4Cl2 parent Mott insulator of cuprates. We find that the upper Hubbard band moves towards the Fermi energy with increasing temperature, while the charge transfer band remains basically unchanged. This leads to a reduction of the charge transfer gap size at high temperatures, and the rate of reduction is much faster than that of conventional semiconductors. Across the Neel temperature for antiferromagnetic order, there is no sudden change in the electronic structure. These results shed new …
Using the scaling theory of quantum critical phenomena we present a detailed analysis of various superconducting properties of La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$, Y$_{0.8}$Ca$_{0.2}$-123, Tl-1212 and Tl-2201. Our results include: the experimental data are fully consistent with a 2D insulator to superconductor (ISQ) transition in the underdoped limit. The quantum critical properties appear to be equivalent to those of a dirty 2D bosonic system with long range Coulomb interaction. Together with previous evidence, this transition appears to be a generic feature of cuprate superconductors. The 3D superco…
In this paper we explore the incommensurate spatial modulation of spin-spin correlations as the intrinsic property of the doped Mott insulator, described by the $t-J$ model. We show that such an incommensurability is a direct manifestation of the phase string effect introduced by doped holes in both one- and two-dimensional cases. The magnetic incommensurate peaks of dynamic spin susceptibility in momentum space are in agreement with the neutron-scattering measurement of cuprate superconductors in both position and doping dependence. In particular, this incommensurate structure can naturally r…
Realistic electronic-structure calculations for correlated Mott insulators are notoriously hard. Here we present an ab initio multiconfiguration scheme that adequately describes strong correlation effects involving Cu 3d and O 2p electrons in layered cuprates. In particular, the O 2p states giving rise to the Zhang-Rice band are explicitly considered. Renormalization effects due to nonlocal spin interactions are also treated consistently. We show that the dispersion of the lowest band observed in photoemission is reproduced with quantitative accuracy. Additionally, the evolution of the Fermi s…
Proximity-induced superconductivity in a 3D topological insulator represents a new avenue for observing zero-energy Majorana fermions inside vortex cores. Relatively small gaps and low transition temperatures of conventional s-wave superconductors put the hard constraints on these experiments. Significantly larger gaps and higher transition temperatures in cuprate superconductors might be an attractive alternative to considerably relax these constraints, but it is not clear whether the proximity effect would be effective in heterostructures involving cuprates and topological insulators. Here, …
It is widely believed that high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates emerges from doped Mott insulators. The physics of the parent state seems deceivingly simple: The hopping of the electrons from site to site is prohibited because their on-site Coulomb repulsion U is larger than the kinetic energy gain t. When doping these materials by inserting a small percentage of extra carriers, the electrons become mobile but the strong correlations from the Mott state are thought to survive; inhomogeneous electronic order, a mysterious pseudogap and, eventually, superconductivity appear. How th…
It was recently demonstrated that in La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} the magnetic-field (H) dependence of the low-temperature thermal conductivity κup to 16 T reflects whether the normal state is a metal or an insulator. We measure the H dependence of κin YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{y} (YBCO) at subkelvin temperatures for a wide doping range, and find that at low doping the κ(H) behavior signifies the change in the ground state in this system as well. Surprisingly, the critical doping is found to be located deeply inside the underdoped region, about the hole doping of 0.07 hole/Cu; this critical doping is apparentl…
Second magnetization peak (SMP) in hole-doped cuprates and iron pnictide superconductors has been widely explored. However, similar feature in the family of electron-doped cuprates is not common. Here, we report the vortex dynamics study in the single crystal of an electron-doped cuprate Pr$_{0.87}$LaCe$_{0.13}$CuO$_4$ superconductor using dc magnetization measurements. A SMP feature in the isothermal $M(H)$ was observed for $H$$\parallel$$ab$-planes. On the other hand, no such feature was observed for $H$$\parallel$$c$-axis in the crystal. Using magnetic relaxation data, a detailed analysis o…
The transport of heat and charge in cuprates was measured in undoped and heavily-underdoped single crystal La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_{4+delta} (LSCO). In underdoped LSCO, the thermal conductivity is found to decrease with increasing magnetic field in the T --> 0 limit, in striking contrast to the increase observed in all superconductors, including cuprates at higher doping. The suppression of superconductivity with magnetic field shows that a novel thermal metal-to-insulator transition occurs upon going from the superconducting state to the field-induced normal state.
Spin excitations in the overdoped high temperature superconductors Tl$_2$Ba$_2$CuO$_{6+δ}$ and (Bi,Pb)$_2$(Sr,La)$_{2}$CuO$_{6+δ}$ were investigated by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) as functions of doping and detuning of the incoming photon energy above the Cu-$L_3$ absorption peak. The RIXS spectra at optimal doping are dominated by a paramagnon feature with peak energy independent of photon energy, similar to prior results on underdoped cuprates. Beyond optimal doping, the RIXS data indicate a sharp crossover to a regime with a strong contribution from incoherent particle/hole e…
