Origin of anomalous low-temperature downturns in the thermal conductivity of cuprates

Smith, M. F.; Paglione, Johnpierre; Walker, M. B.; Taillefer, Louis

doi:10.1103/physrevb.71.014506

Cited by 59 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Platelet-shaped samples with typical dimensions ∼ 2 × 0.2 × 0.05 mm 3 were prepared for transport measurements along the [100] direction, using the same four-wire contacts for both electrical and thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity was measured with a one-heater, two-thermometer steadystate technique and in-situ thermometer calibration in high fields, using low-resistance indium solder contacts to avoid electron-phonon decoupling effects at low temperatures [25,26], and heat currents applied along the [100] crystallographic direction and magnetic field along either [001] or [100], to within 1…”

Section: Pacs Numbersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum Critical Quasiparticle Scattering within the Superconducting State ofCeCoIn5

et al. 2016

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The thermal conductivity κ of the heavy-fermion metal CeCoIn5 was measured in the normal and superconducting states as a function of temperature T and magnetic field H, for a current and field parallel to the [100] direction. Inside the superconducting state, when the field is lower than the upper critical field Hc2, κ/T is found to increase as T → 0, just as in a metal and in contrast to the behavior of all known superconductors. This is due to unpaired electrons on part of the Fermi surface, which dominate the transport above a certain field. The evolution of κ/T with field reveals that the electron-electron scattering (or transport mass m ) of those unpaired electrons diverges as H → Hc2 from below, in the same way that it does in the normal state as H → Hc2 from above. This shows that the unpaired electrons sense the proximity of the field-tuned quantum critical point of CeCoIn5 at H = Hc2 even from inside the superconducting state. The fact that the quantum critical scattering of the unpaired electrons is much weaker than the average scattering of all electrons in the normal state reveals a k-space correlation between the strength of pairing and the strength of scattering, pointing to a common mechanism, presumably antiferromagnetic fluctuations. PACS numbers:With the discovery of iron-based superconductors [1], the interplay of magnetism and superconductivity has become an increasingly important topic of condensed matter physics. The archetypal evidence of magneticallymediated superconductivity in the heavy-fermion metal CeIn 3 [2] linked unconventional Cooper pairing with magnetic fluctuations emanating from a quantum critical point (QCP), a scenario widely believed to explain the common appearance of superconductivity in the vicinity of antiferromagnetic order in heavy fermion, organic, pnictide and cuprate families of superconductors [3].The heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn 5 [8] continues to receive considerable attention [4][5][6][7]. Lowtemperature transport [9,32] and specific heat [10] studies have revealed a magnetic field-tuned QCP, with a critical field H that anomalously coincides with H c2 , the upper critical field for superconductivity. The pinning of H to H c2 was subsequently shown to hold regardless of field orientation [11] or suppression of the superconducting state by impurities [12], suggesting a novel form of quantum criticality closely linked with the superconducting state. Recent work has revealed other examples of systems that appear to have a field-tuned QCP pinned to H c2 , including cuprates [13,14] and iron pnictides [15].Together with large angle scattering evidence [32], the presence of similar critical behavior in the ordered antiferromagnet CeRhIn 5 under pressure [16] strongly suggests that the QCP for H c configuration in CeCoIn 5 is also magnetic in nature, although magnetic order was not observed in muon spin rotation [17] or neutron scattering measurements [18]. However, for H ab neutron scattering [19,20] and nuclear magnetic resonance [21] measurements have found...

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Section: Pacs Numbersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum Critical Quasiparticle Scattering within the Superconducting State ofCeCoIn5

et al. 2016

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“…This work does provide a basis for understanding T 2 -dependence in cuprates when it occurs and should be considered when, for example, the magnetic-field dependence of κ is analyzed. A detailed comparison of this work with the low-T data is complicated by the observation of T 3−δ (where δ ≤ 0.3) power laws arising because of a poorly understood boundary-scattering effect 123 and because low-T downturns in κ/T data occur due to heating losses 19 . I shall briefly discuss the doping dependence of these results.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For a numerical estimate, I use g ≈ 6 eV obtained from observations of low-T downturns 19 of κ el /T in optimally doped cuprates and assume that g ′ is of the same order 20 as g; the factor in parentheses of Eq. 14 is then of order unity and, introducing the Debye energy ǫ D , k B T 0 ≈ ∆ 0 ǫ D (a/Λ).…”

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Low-Tphononic thermal conductivity in superconductors with line nodes

Smith¹

2005

Phys. Rev. B

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The phonon contribution to the thermal conductivity at low temperature in superconductors with line nodes is calculated assuming that scattering by both nodal quasiparticles and the sample boundaries is significant. It is determined that, within the regime in which the quasiparticles are in the universal limit and the phonon attenuation is in the hydrodynamic limit, there exists a wide temperature range over which the phonon thermal conductivity varies as T 2 . This behaviour comes from the fact that transverse phonons propagating along certain directions do not interact with nodal quasiparticles and is thus found to be required by the symmetry of the crystal and the superconducting gap, independent of the model used for the electron-phonon interaction. The T 2dependence of the phonon thermal conductivity occurs over a well-defined intermediate temperature range: at higher T the temperature-dependence is found to be linear while at lower T the usual T 3 (boundary-limited) behaviour is recovered. Results are compared to recent measurements of the thermal conductivity of Tl2201, and are shown to be consistent with the data.

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“…Smith et al [23] have suggested by phenomenological treatment that the downturn of κ is a result of the decoupling of the heat carrying phonons and electrical charge carriers at low-T , while Hill et al [22] have noted that the downturn is a fundamental intrinsic property of copper oxides. The downturn has been widely accepted as a characteristic of non-Landau Fermi liquid behavior.…”

Section: Resistivity Temperature Upturnmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The decrease in the density of the conducting carriers is a reason for the MIC of cuprates. It is also the origin of the decoupling of the heat-carrying thermal phonons with these charge carriers [23].…”

Section: B Abdullaev D B Abdullaev C -H Park M M Musakhanovmentioning

confidence: 99%

Normal state pair nematicity and hidden magnetic order and metal-insulator (fermionboson) crossover origin of pseudogap phase of cuprates II

Abdullaev¹,

Abdullaev²,

Park³

et al. 2017

Nanosystems: Phys. Chem. Math.

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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 [Abdullaev B., et al. arXiv:cond-mat/0703290], 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 the PG pair intra charge and spin fluctuations. We will try to obtain an answer to the question; why ground state of YBCO is Fermi liquid oscillating and of Bi-2212 is insulating? We will also clarify the physics of the recently observed MIC results of Lalibert et al. [arXiv:1606.04491] and explain the long-discussed transition of the electric charge density from doping to doping+1 dependence at the critical doping. We predict that at the upturns this density should have the temperature dependences n ∼ T 3 n 2 for T → 0, where n 2 is density for dopings close to the critical value. We understood that the upturns before and after the first critical doping have the same nature. We will find understanding of all above mentioned phenomena within PG pair physics.Keywords: high critical temperature superconductivity, cuprate, metal-insulator-crossover, temperature-doping phase diagram, resistivity temperature upturn, insulating ground state, nematicity and stripe phases, Fermi pockets evolution.

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Origin of anomalous low-temperature downturns in the thermal conductivity of cuprates

Cited by 59 publications

References 17 publications

Quantum Critical Quasiparticle Scattering within the Superconducting State ofCeCoIn5

Quantum Critical Quasiparticle Scattering within the Superconducting State ofCeCoIn5

Low-Tphononic thermal conductivity in superconductors with line nodes

Normal state pair nematicity and hidden magnetic order and metal-insulator (fermionboson) crossover origin of pseudogap phase of cuprates II

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