Phase separation and oxygen diffusion in electrochemically oxidized La2CuO4+ delta : A static magnetic susceptibility study

The flux dynamics behavior of the two competing high temperature superconducting phases in underdoped LaCuO4.06

In complex transition metal oxides (TMO) an arrested electronic phase separation (PS) appears by tuning the system near a Lifshitz transition in multiband Hubbard models. The PS in La2CuO4+y near insulator to metal transition (IMT) is made of short range Charge Density Wave (CDW) order inhomogeneity coexisting with quenched lattice disorder. While at high doping y = 0.1 percolation gives a single superconducting phase, near the IMT at y = 0.06 two coexisting superconducting phases appear: the first one with a critical temperature Tc1 = 16 K and the second one with Tc2 = 29 K. It is known that the two superconducting phases are characterized by two different space geometry because of two different spatial distributions of both CDW order and dopants self-organization. Here we show that these two phases show different flux dynamic regimes using alternating current (AC) multi-harmonic susceptibility experiments. This is a unique technique capable to investigate multi-phase superconductors and characterize their transport properties in a percolative scenario. Results point out that the low critical temperature phase is well described by a bulk-like flux pinning with a 2D geometry while the phase with higher critical temperature shows a 'barrier pinning' mechanism providing direct evidence of two different superconducting vortex dynamics in different complex geometrical spaces.

The Possibility of a Liquid Superconductor

All superconductors are solids in their superconducting state, this canonical electronic state of matter presently having only been observed well below the melting temperature of the solid. The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates has widened significantly our horizons of the theoretical understanding of the physical phenomenon. A number of observations point to the possibility that superconductors with a high superconducting transition temperature may not be conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductors, but rather derive from the Bose-Einstein condensation of real-space pairs. While BCS superconductors exist in the solid state (probably with the exception of metallic liquid hydrogen at ultrahigh pressures), we argue here that a superconducting charged Bose liquid may be found in a true liquid state of condensed matter at ambient pressure. An experimental scenario is outlined in fluid metal-ammonia solutions for stabilizing and observing a high-temperature superconducting liquid (ca. 230 K) or at least a vitreous superconductor in the corresponding quenched solutions (ca. 160 K).

Characterization of Oxygen Dynamics in ZrW2O8

The dynamics of oxygen motion in ZrW(2)O(8) have been characterized using (17)O solid-state NMR. Rates of dynamic exchange have been extracted from magnetization transfer experiments over a temperature range of 40 to 226 degrees C, and distinct values for the associated activation barrier have been observed on either side of the order/disorder phase transition at approximately 175 degrees C. A detailed model for the dynamical process is proposed, which reconciles the observation of continuing oxygen dynamics in the low-temperature phase with the static order implied by earlier X-ray diffraction studies.

Unusual magnetic susceptibility anisotropy in untwinned La2-xSr(x)CuO4 single crystals in the lightly doped region

We present a study of the magnetic susceptibility chi in carefully detwinned La 2-xSr(x)CuO4 single crystals in the lightly doped region (x = 0-0.03), which demonstrates a remarkable in-plane anisotropy of the spin system. This anisotropy, chi(a)/chi(b), is found to persist after the long-range antiferromagnetic (AF) order is destroyed by hole doping, suggesting that doped holes break the AF order into domains in which the spin alignment is kept essentially intact. It turns out that the freezing of the spins taking place at low temperatures is also notably anisotropic, implying that the "spin-glass" feature is governed by the domain structure as well.