Anomalous vortex liquid in charge-ordered cuprate superconductors

Abstract

The interplay between charge order and d-wave superconductivity in high-Tc cuprates remains an open question. While mounting evidence from spectroscopic probes indicates that charge order competes with superconductivity, to date little is known about the impact of charge order on charge transport in the mixed state, when vortices are present. Here we study the low-temperature electrical resistivity of three distinctly different cuprate families under intense magnetic fields, over a broad range of hole doping and current excitations. We find that the electronic transport in the doping regime where long-range charge order is known to be present is characterized by a nonohmic resistivity, the identifying feature of an anomalous vortex liquid. The field and temperature range in which this nonohmic behavior occurs indicates that the presence of long-range charge order is closely related to the emergence of this anomalous vortex liquid, near a vortex solid boundary that is defined by the excitation current in the T→ 0 limit. Our findings further suggest that this anomalous vortex liquid, a manifestation of fragile superconductivity with a suppressed critical current density, is ubiquitous in the high-field state of charge-ordered cuprates.

Enhanced charge density wave with mobile superconducting vortices in La1.885Sr0.115CuO4

“…2), the sudden increase of the CDW amplitude δCDW SRO above H m (or, equivalently, a suppression of CDW SRO upon entering the vortex-solid phase) implies a strong response of the CDW to the state of the vortices, whether pinned or mobile. Our result is complementary to recent theoretical and experimental studies that reveal an intricate interaction between superconductivity and topological defects in the coexisting CDW order [42][43][44] . We show that mobile topological defects in the superconducting order, the vortices, greatly enhances the CDW.…”

Strange metal electrodynamics across the phase diagram of Bi2−xPbxSr2−yLaHeumen1, Feng2, Cassanelli3 et al. 2022Phys. Rev. BSelf Cite15050View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…In addition, it should be emphasized that these estimates are all obtained from specific heat measurements at large magnetic fields and very low temperatures [66,67]. Invariably at the fields that can be reached in the laboratory one is still deep inside the flux liquid regime and given the gross changes that occur entering the superconductor from the strange metal as a function of temperature (e.g., the increased coherence of the quasiparticles in the superconducting state) it is not at all clear whether these band mass estimates have anything to do with the high temperature metal [68].…”