One of the first finding concerning the superconducting (SC) density $n_{\rm sc}$ in cuprates was their small magnitudes that revealed the importance of phase fluctuations. More recently, measurements in a variety of overdoped cuprates indicate that it is also much smaller than expected from BCS theories and falls smoothly to zero as doping is increased. We explain these observations by an electronic phase separation theory with a Ginzburg-Landau potential $V_{\rm GL}$ that produces alternating charge domains whose fluctuations lead to localized SC order parameters that are connected by Josephson coupling $E_{\rm J}$. The average ${\left <E_{\rm J}( p,T)\right>}$ is proportional to the local superfluid phase stiffness $ρ_{\rm sc} \propto n_{\rm sc}$. The fraction of condensed carriers decreases in the overdoped region due to the weakening of $V_{\rm GL}$. The results agreed with $ρ_{\rm sc}(p)$ vs. $T_{\rm c}(p)$ and the Drude-like peak measurements.
We propose a weakly coupled two-band model with $d_{x^2-y^2}$ pairing symmetry to account for the anomalous temperature dependence of superfluid density $ρ_s$ in electron-doped cuprate superconductors. This model gives a unified explanation to the presence of a upward curvature in $ρ_s$ near $T_c$ and a weak temperature dependence of $ρ_s$ in low temperatures. Our work resolves a discrepancy in the interpretation of different experimental measurements and suggests that the pairing in electron-doped cuprates has predominately $d_{x^2-y^2}$ symmetry in the whole doping range.
We propose a mechanism for superconductivity suppression in stripe-correlated cuprates based on the pinning of the stripes by impurities, such as Zn. The suppression of superfluid density occurs in the vicinity of the impurity due to the low dimensional character of superfluid carriers on the stripes. Simple geometric argument about the planar fraction of the carriers, affected by stripe pinning, leads to prediction for impurity critical concentration $z_c \sim T^2_c$ and for the linear $T_c$ suppression by Zn doping. We show that our results reproduce the Uemura relation in the pure system an…
A consistent microscopic theory of pseudogap phenomena and novel Bose-liquid superconductivity (superfluidity) is presented, based on the fact that in high-$T_c$ cuprates and related systems the energy $\varepsilon_A$ of the effective attraction between fermions is comparable with their Fermi energy $\varepsilon_F$ and the bosonic Cooper pairs are formed above $T_c$ and then a part of such Cooper pairs condense into a Bose superfluid at $T_c$. High-$T_c$ cuprates and other systems with low Fermi energies ($\varepsilon_F\sim\varepsilon_A$) are bosonic superconductors/superfluids and exhibit pse…
The criteria for bosonization of Cooper pairs and novel Bose-liquid superconductivity and superfluidity in high-$T_c$ cuprates and other pseudogap matters are formulated by using the uncertainty principle and the boson mean field theory. We argue that the BCS-type s- or d-wave superconductivity occurring in the fermionic limit of Cooper pairs (which exist in ordinary metals and heavily overdoped cuprates with large Fermi energies) is not characteristic of underdoped to overdoped cuprates with low Fermi energies. The superconducting order parameter in high-$T_c$ cuprates and other pseudogap mat…
In layered cuprates, the application of an in-plane magnetic field $({\bf H})$ changes the c-axis optical sum rule and superfluid density $ρ_{s}$. For pure incoherent c-axis coupling, ${\bf H}$ has no effect on either quantities but it does if an additional coherent component is present. For the coherent contribution, different characteristic variations on ${\bf H}$ and on temperature result from the constant part $(t_{\perp})$ of the hopping matrix element and from the part $(t_ϕ)$ which has zero on the diagonal of the Brillouin zone. Only the constant part $(t_{\perp})$ leads to a dependence…
Underdoped cuprates exhibit a normal-state pseudogap, and their spins and doped carriers tend to spatially separate into 1- or 2-D stripes. Some view these as central to superconductivity, others as peripheral and merely competing. Using La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$Cu$_{1-y}$Zn$_y$O$_4$ we show that an oxygen isotope effect in $T_c$ and in the superfluid density can be used to distinguish between the roles of stripes and pseudogap and also to detect the presence of impurity scattering. We conclude that stripes and pseudogap are distinct, and both compete and coexist with superconductivity.
We argue that the standard Abrikosov-Gorkov (AG) type theory of $T_c$ in disordered $d$-wave superconductors breaks down in short coherence length high-$T_c$ cuprates. Numerical calculations within the Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism demonstrate that the correct description of such systems must allow for the spatial variation of the order parameter, which is strongly suppressed in the vicinity of impurities but mostly unaffected elsewhere. Suppression of $T_c$ as measured with respect to the attendant decrease in the superfluid density is found to be significantly weaker than that predicted by …
We examine the nature of the collective excitations in a strongly anisotropic system of bosons interacting via Coulomb interaction. Such a system has often been used in the past to model the effects of quantum and classical phase fluctuations on the superfluid density of underdoped cuprates. Depending on the anisotropy and the effective strength of the interaction we find four different regimes for the temperature dependence of the superfluid density. Coulomb interaction in underdoped cuprates is argued to be effectively short-ranged, and of order of unity in appropriately defined units.
A universal scaling relation, $ρ_s \propto σ(T_c)\times T_c$ has been reported by Homes $et$ $al$. (Nature (London) {\bf 430}, 539 (2004)) where $ρ_s$ is the superfluid density and $σ(T)$ is the DC conductivity. The relation was shown to apply to both c-axis and in-plane dynamics for high-$T_c$ superconductors as well as to the more conventional superconductors Nb and Pb, suggesting common physics in these systems. We show quantitatively that the scaling behavior has several possible origins including, marginal Fermi-liquid behavior, Josephson coupling, dirty-limit superconductivity and unitar…
We prove that a gauge approach based on a composite structure of the hole in hole-doped cuprates is able to capture analytically many features of the experimental data on superfluid density in the moderate-underdoping to nearly-optimal doping region, including critical exponent, the Uemura relation and near universality of the normalized superfluid density.
Questioning the cuprate paradigm -- absence of superfluid density loss in several overdoped cuprates I
Robinson Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington(惠灵顿维多利亚大学罗宾逊研究所);Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University(剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室);Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院物理研究所);University of Fribourg(弗里堡大学);University of Zagreb(萨格勒布大学)
The doping dependence of the superfluid density, r_s, of high-Tc superconductors is usually considered in the context of the Uemura relation, namely Tc proportional to rs, which is generally assumed to apply in the underdoped regime. We show that a modified plot of Tc/Do versus rs, where Do is the maximum d-wave gap at T=0, exhibits universal features that point to an alternative interpretation of the underlying physics. In the underdoped region this plot exhibits the canonical negative curvature expected when a ground-state correlation competes with superconductivity (SC) by opening up a gap …
The absolute values and temperature, T, dependence of the in-plane magnetic penetration depth, $λ_{ab}$, of La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4 and HgBa_2CuO_{4+δ} have been measured as a function of carrier concentration. We find that the superfluid density, $ρ_s$, changes substantially and systematically with doping. The values of $ρ_{s}(0)$ are closely linked to the available low energy spectral weight as determined by the electronic entropy just above T_c and the initial slope of $ρ_{s}(T)/ρ_{s}(0)$ increases rapidly with carrier concentration. The results are discussed in the context of a possible relation…
Despite often being dismissively described as exhibiting conventional Fermi-liquid-like behaviour, heavily overdoped high-Tc cuprates sport several unexpected features. Thermodynamic properties expected to be roughly constant with doping decrease towards zero, signalling that a growing fraction of carriers remain in the normal state below Tc. Near Tc, the superconducting energy gap fills in with temperature, contrary to the expectations of BCS theory. Most recently a transition in the Hall number of some cuprates was found to extend to a very high doping (x~0.27), far beyond the pseudogap crit…
We show that several features (the three-dimensional XY universality for moderate underdoping, the almost-BCS behaviour for moderate overdoping and the critical exponent) of the superfluid density in hole-doped cuprates hint at a composite structure of the holes. This idea can be implemented in a spin-charge gauge approach to the $t - t' - J$ model and provides indeed good agreement with available experimental data.
We calculate superfluid density for a dirty d-wave superconductor. The effects of impurity scattering are treated within the self-consistent t-matrix approximation, in weak-coupling BCS theory. Working from a realistic tight-binding parameterization of the Fermi surface, we find a superfluid density that is both correlated with T_c and linear in temperature, in good correspondence with recent experiments on overdoped La2-xSrxCuO4.
The weak magnetic field induced reduction of the low-temperature superfluid density in cuprate superconductors is studied based on the kinetic energy driven superconducting mechanism. The electromagnetic response kernel is evaluated by considering both couplings of the electron charge and electron magnetic momentum with a weak magnetic field and employed to calculate the superfluid density, then the main features of the weak magnetic field induced reduction of the low-temperature superfluid density are well reproduced. The theory also shows that the striking behavior of the weak magnetic field…
In the underdoped, overdoped, Zn-doped or stripe-forming regions of high-$T_{c}$ cuprate superconductors (HTSC), the superfluid density $n_{s}/m^{*}$ at $T\to 0$ shows universal correlations with $T_{c}$. Similar strong correlations exist between 2-dimensional superfluid density and superfluid transition temperature in thin films of $^{4}$He in non-porous or porous media, and $^{4}$He/$^{3}$He film adsorbed on porous media. Based on analogy between HTSC and He film systems, we propose a model for cuprates where: (1) the overdoped region is characterized by a phase separation similar to $^{4}$H…
In earlier work, we have been concerned with the scaling properties of some classes of superconductors, specifically with heavy Fermion materials and with five bcc transition metals of BCS character. Both of these classes of superconductors were three-dimensional but here we are concerned solely with quasi-two-dimensional high-Tc cuprates in the underdoped region of their phase diagram. A characteristic feature of this part of the phase diagram is the existence of a pseudogap (pg). We therefore build our approach around the assumption that kB Tc / E_pg is the basic dimensionless ratio on which…
We have studied the doping dependence of the in-plane and out-of-plane superfluid density, ρ^s(0), of two monolayer high-Tc superconductors, HgBa_2CuO_{4+δ} and La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4, using the low frequency ac-susceptibility and the muon spin relaxation techniques. For both superconductors, ρ^s(0) increases rapidly with doping in the under- and optimally doped regime and becomes nearly doping independent above a critical doping, p_c = 0.20.
We review the empirical scenario emerging from the measured doping dependence of the transition temperature and the anisotropy parameter $% γ$ $=ξ_{ab}/ξ_{c}$, defined as the ratio of the correlation lengths parallel and perpendicular to the ab-planes. It suggests that two dimensional models cannot explain the occurrence of superconductivity in the cuprates. This conclusion is confirmed and extended in terms of a novel scaling relation. It involves the transition temperature, the aerial superfluid density in the ground state, $γ$ and the dynamic critical exponent of the quantum superconductor …
We use scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to study magnetic Fe impurities intentionally doped into the high-temperature superconductor Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$Ca$_{2}$CuO$_{8+δ}$. Our spectroscopic measurements reveal that Fe impurities introduce low-lying resonances in the density of states at Ω$_{1}$ $\approx$ 4meV and Ω$_{2}$ $\approx$ 15 meV allowing us to determine that, despite having a large magnetic moment, potential scattering of quasiparticles by Fe impurities dominates magnetic scattering. In addition, using high-resolution spatial characterizations of the local density of states near and …
While the pseudogap dominates the phase diagram of hole-doped cuprates, connecting the antiferromagnetic parent insulator at low doping to the strange metal at higher doping, its origin and relation to superconductivity remains unknown. In order to proceed, a complete understanding of how the single hole - initially localized in the Mott state - becomes mobile and ultimately evolves into a coherent quasiparticle at the end of the superconducting dome is required. In order to affect this development, we examine recent transport and spectroscopic studies of hole-doped cuprates across their phase…
We present \emph{c} axis infrared optical data on a number of Ba, Sr and Nd-doped cuprates of the La$_{2}$CuO$_{4}$ (La214) series in which we observe significant deviations from the universal Josephson relation linking the normal state transport (DC conductivity $σ_{DC}$ measured at $T_{c}$) with the superfluid density ($ρ_{s}$): $ρ_{s}\proptoσ_{DC}(T_{c})$. We find the violation of Josephson scaling is associated with striking enhancement of the anisotropy in the superfluid density. The data allows us to link the breakdown of Josephson interlayer physics with the development of magnetic orde…
The in-plane optical conductivity of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d thin films with small carrier density (underdoped) up to large carrier density (overdoped) is analyzed with unprecedented accuracy. Integrating the conductivity up to increasingly higher energies points to the energy scale involved when the superfluid condensate builds up. In the underdoped sample, states extending up to 2 eV contribute to the superfluid. This anomalously large energy scale may be assigned to a change of in-plane kinetic energy at the superconducting transition, and is compatible with an electronic pairing mechanism.
The combination of a large superconducting gap, low transition temperature, and quasi two-dimensionality in strongly underdoped high temperature superconductors severely constrains the behavior of the ab-plane superfluid density ρwith temperature T. In particular, we argue that the contribution of nodal quasiparticles to ρ(T) is essential to account both for the amplitude of, and the recently observed deviations from, the Uemura scaling. A relation between T_c and ρ(0) which combines the effects of quasiparticle excitations at low temperatures and of vortex fluctuations near the critical tempe…
Unconventional superconductivity in the cuprates emerges from, or coexists with, other types of electronic order. However, these orders are sometimes invisible because of their symmetry. For example, the possible existence of superfluid charge stripes in the normal state of single layer cuprates cannot be validated with infrared optics, because interlayer tunneling fluctuations vanish on average. Similarly, it is not easy to establish if charge orders are responsible for dynamical decoupling of the superconducting layers over broad ranges of doping and temperatures. Here, we show that TeraHert…
From study of the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Berezinskii (KTB) transition in the superfluid density, n_s(T), of ultrathin c-axis oriented YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-δ} (YBCO) films, we find that interlayer coupling is unexpectedly strong. The KTB transition occurs at a high temperature, as if the films were isotropic rather than quasi-two-dimensional. This result agrees with a comparison of the superfluid density of YBCO with Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8} and with numerical simulations of Josephson junction arrays, and challenges the thermal phase fluctuation interpretation of critical behavior near T_c in YBCO.
Recent study of overdoped La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ cuprate superconductor thin films by Božović {\it et al.} has revealed several unexpected findings, most notably the violation of the BCS description which was believed to adequately describe overdoped cuprates. In particular, it was found that the superfluid density in La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ films decreases on the overdoped side as a linear function of critical temperature T$_c$, which was taken as evidence for the violation of the Homes' law. We show explicitly that the law is indeed violated, and as the main reason for violation we find tha…
We report on generic trends in the behavior of the interlayer penetration depth $λ_c$ of several different classes of quasi two-dimensional superconductors including cuprates, Sr$_2$RuO$_4$, transition metal dichalcogenides and organic materials of the $(BEDT-TTF)_2X$-series. Analysis of these trends reveals two distinct patterns in the scaling between the values of $λ_c$ and the magnitude of the DC conductivity: one realized in the systems with a Fermi liquid (FL) ground state and the other seen in systems with a marked deviation from the FL response. The latter pattern is found primarily in …
A long-standing puzzle is why there is a difference between the optimal doping δ_{optimal}=0.15 for the maximal superconducting (SC) transition temperature Tc and the critical doping δ_{critical}=0.19 for the highest superfluid density ρ_s in cuprate superconductors? This puzzle is calling for an explanation. Within the kinetic energy driven SC mechanism, it is shown that except the quasiparticle coherence, ρ_s is dominated by the bare pair gap, while Tc is set by the effective pair gap. By calculation of the ratio of the effective and the bare pair gaps, it is shown that the coupling strength…
By using the gauge-invariant kinetic equation approach [Yang and Wu, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 98}, 094507 (2018); {\bf 100}, 104513 (2019)], we construct the coupled dual dynamics of macroscopic phase coherence and microscopic electronic fluids in cuprate superconductors. We prove that the developed dual dynamics provides an efficient and simplified approach to formulate the dephasing process of macroscopic superconducting phase coherence, as well as its influence on microscopic electronic fluids (including gap, densities of superfluid and normal fluid, and in particular, the transport property to de…
Based on our recent holon-pair boson theory of the t-J Hamiltonian (Phys. Rev. B 64, 052501 (2001)) we report the doping dependence of the bose condensation energy, superfluid weight and spectral peak intensity. We find a universality of doping dependence in these physical quantities, by equally showing an arch shape in the variations of their magnitudes with the hole doping concentration. We find that all of these physical quantities scale well with the positive charge carrier (hole) density x, but not with the electron density 1-x for the entire range of hole doping. It is shown that the dop…
The heirarchical mean-field theory of elastic networks, originally developed by Maxwell to discuss the stability of scaffolds, and recently applied to atomic networks by Phillips and Thorpe, explains the phase diagrams and remarkable superconductive properties of cuprates as the result of giant electron-phonon interactions in a marginally unstable mechanical network. The overall cuprate networks are fragile (floppy), as shown quantitatively (with an accuracy ~1 percent), and without adjustable parameters, by comparison with stabilities of generically similar network glasses, and are stabilized…
A central issue in the physics of high temperature superconductors is to understand superconductivity within a single copper-oxide layer or bilayer, the fundamental structural unit in the cuprates, and how it is lost with underdoping. As mobile holes are removed from the CuO_2 planes, the transition temperature T_C and superfluid density n_S decrease in a surprisingly correlated fashion in crystals and thick films. We seek to elucidate the intrinsic physics of bilayers in the strongly underdoped regime, near the critical doping level where superconductivity disappears. We report measurements o…
Despite of the success of the slave-boson theory in capturing qualitative physics of high-temperature superconductors like cuprates, it fails to reproduce the correct temperature-dependent behavior of superfluid density, let alone the independence of the linear temperature term on doping in the underdoped regimes of hole-doped cuprate, a common experimental observation in different cuprates. It remains puzzling up to now in spite of intensive theoretical efforts. For electron-doped case, even qualitative treatment is not reported at present time. Here we revisit these problems and provide an a…
Within the framework of the kinetic energy driven superconducting mechanism, the doping dependence of the electromagnetic response in the electron-doped cuprate superconductors is studied. It is shown that although there is an electron-hole asymmetry in the phase diagram, the electromagnetic response in the electron-doped cuprate superconductors is similar to that observed in the hole-doped cuprate superconductors. The superfluid density depends linearly on temperature, except for the strong deviation from the linear characteristics at the extremely low temperatures.
Using the improved slave-boson approach of the t-J Hamiltonian [Phys. Rev. B 64, 052501 (2001)] that we developed recently, we report the hole doping and temperature dependence of the superfluid weight. It is shown that at low hole doping concentration x and at low temperatures T there exists a propensity of a linear decrease of the superfluid weight $n_s/m^*$ with temperature, and a tendency of doping independence in the slope of $\frac{n_s}{m^*}(x,T)$ vs. T in accordance of the relation $\frac{n_s}{m^*}(x,T) = \frac{n_s}{m^*}(x,0) - αT$ with $α$, a constant. It is also demonstrated that Tc i…
Superfluid stiffness $ρ_s$ is a defining characteristic of the superconducting state, allowing phase coherence and supercurrent. It is accessible experimentally through the penetration depth. Coexistence of $d$-wave superconductivity with other phases in underdoped cuprates, such as antiferromagnetism (AF) or charge-density waves (CDW), may drastically alter $ρ_s$. To shed light on this physics, the zero-temperature value of $ρ_s=ρ_{zz}$ along the $c$-axis was computed for different values of Hubbard interaction $U$ and different sets of tight-binding parameters describing the high-temperature…
The model of hole superconductivity predicts that the superfluid weight in the zero-frequency $δ$-function in the optical conductivity has an anomalous contribution from high frequencies, due to lowering of the system's kinetic energy upon entering the superconducting state. The lowering of kinetic energy, mainly in-plane in origin, accounts for both the condensation energy of the superconductor as well as an increased potential energy due to larger Coulomb repulsion in the paired state. It leads to an apparent violation of the conductivity sum rule, which in the clean limit we predict to be s…
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.
Overdoped high-temperature cuprate superconductors have been widely believed to be described by the physics of d-wave BCS-like superconductivity. However, recent measurements indicate that as the doping is increased, the superfluid density decreases smoothly to zero rather than increasing as expected by BCS theory in the absence of disorder. Here, we combine time-domain THz spectroscopy with kHz range mutual inductance measurements on the same overdoped La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$ films to determine both the superfluid and the uncondensed carrier density as a function of doping. A significant …
We use a renormalized mean field theory to investigate the superconducting properties of underdoped cuprates embedded with overdoped or metallic regions that carry excess dopants. The overdoped regions are considered, within two different models, first as stripes of mesoscopic size larger than the coherence length and then as point impurities. In the former case we compute the temperature dependent superfluid stiffness by solving Bogoliubov de Gennes equations within the slave boson mean field theory. We average over stripes of different orientations to obtain an isotropic result. To compute t…
We investigate the isotope effect on the London penetration depth of a superconductor which measures $n_S/m^*$, the ratio of superfluid density to effective mass. We use a simplified model of electrons weakly coupled to a single phonon frequency $ω_E$, but assume that the energy gap $Δ$ does not have any isotope effect. Nevertheless we find an isotope effect for $n_S/m^*$ which is significant if $Δ$ is sufficiently large that it becomes comparable to $ω_E$, a regime of interest to high $T_c$ cuprate superconductors and possibly other families of unconventional superconductors with relatively h…
Recently Chakravarty, Laughlin, Morr and Nayak made an interesting proposal that the cuprate superconductors possess a hidden ``d-density wave'' order. We study the implication of this proposal for the superfluid density ρ_s. We find that it predicts a temperature gradient |dρ_s/dT|_{T=0} that is strongly doping dependent near the critical doping (\approx 5%) at which the superconducting transition temperature vanishes.
The study of the electromagnetic response in cuprate superconductors plays a crucial role in the understanding of the essential physics of these materials. Here the doping dependence of the electromagnetic response in cuprate superconductors is studied within the kinetic-energy driven superconducting mechanism. The kernel of the response function is evaluated based on the linear response approximation for a purely transverse vector potential, and can be broken up into its diamagnetic and paramagnetic parts. In particular, this paramagnetic part exactly cancels the corresponding diamagnetic par…
In this paper, I study the oxygen isotope effect (OIE) in cuprates. I introduce a simple model that can explain experiments both qualitatively and quantitatively. In this theory, isotope substitution only affects the superfluid density, but not the pseudo-gap. Within the spin-charge separation picture, I argue that the spinon-phonon interaction is in the adiabatic limit, and therefore within the Migdal-Eliashberg theory, there is no isotope effect in the spinon mass renormalization. On the other hand, I show that the holon-phonon interaction is in the non-adiabatic limit. Therefore, the small …
Free energy of a two-liquid system of charge carriers in strongly coupled electron and phonon fields and common nature of three phases in hole-doped cuprates
The characteristic hole concentrations x_opt = 0.16 and x_c = 0.19 in the under- to overdoped transition regime of cuprate superconductors are shown to be intimately interrelated by mesoscale organization of bond-like RVB arrays extending over 3 x 4 copper sites and comprising 2 holes spaced by 3a_0. Columnar organization maximizes T_c but reduces the superfluid stiffness, while zigzag (tweedy) organization maximizes the superfluid stiffness at reduced T_c. The latter goes hand in hand with the closure of the pseudogap. Columnar and zigzag mesoscale organizations of the bond-like RVB arrays ar…
We study the order parameter phase fluctuation effects in cuprate superconductors near T=0, using a quasi-two-dimensional d-wave BCS model. An effective phason theory is obtained which is used to estimate the strength of the fluctuations, the fluctuation correction to the in-plane penetration depth, and the pair-field susceptibility. We find that while the phase fluctuation effects are difficult to observe in the renormalization of the superfluid phase stiffness, they may be observed in a pair tunneling experiment which measures the pair-field susceptibility.
We study the spin fluctuations of pure and Zn-substituted high temperature superconductors (HTS) using the muon spin relaxation (muSR) technique. Superconductivity is found to coexist with low frequency spin fluctuations over a large region of the superconducting phase diagram. The characteristic temperature of spin fluctuations detected by muSR decreases with increasing doping and vanishes above a critical doping pc=0.19 where the normal state pseudogap vanishes. Furthermore, it is at pc that our penetration depth studies show an abrupt change in the doping dependence of the superfluid densit…
We study the quasiparticles of the one-band $t$-$J$ and $t$-$t'$-$t"$-$J$ models using a variational approximation that includes spin fluctuations in the vicinity of the hole. We explain why the spin fluctuations and the longer range hopping have complementary contributions to the quasiparticle dynamics, and thus why both are essential to obtain a dispersion in agreement with that measured experimentally. This is very different from the three-band Emery model in the strongly-correlated limit, where the same variational approximation shows that spin fluctuations have a minor effect on the quasi…
We formulate a model describing the doping ($x$) and temperature ($T$) dependence of the $ab$-plane and c-axis penetration depth of a cuprate superconductor. The model incorporates the suppression of the superfluid density with underdoping as the system approaches the Mott-Hubbard insulating state by augmenting a d-wave BCS model with a phenomenological charge renormalization factor that is vanishingly small for states away from the nodes of the d-wave pair potential but close to unity in the vicinity of the nodes. The c-axis penetration depth is captured within a model of incoherent electron …
To fathom the mechanism of high-temperature ($T_{\rm c}$) superconductivity, the dynamical vertex approximation (D$Γ$A) is evoked for the two-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model. After showing that our results well reproduce the cuprate phase diagram with a reasonable $T_{\rm c}$ and dome structure, we keep track of the scattering processes that primarily affect $T_{\rm c}$. We find that local particle-particle diagrams significantly screen the bare interaction at low frequencies, which in turn suppresses antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and hence the pairing interaction. Thus we identify d…