Critical fluctuations in high-temperature superconductors and the Ettingshausen effect

Field-induced boson insulating states in a 2D superconducting electron gas with strong spin-orbit scatterings

The phenomenon of field-induced superconductor-to-insulator transitions observed experimentally in electron-doped SrTiO₃/LaAlO₃interfaces, analyzed recently by menas of 2D superconducting fluctuations theory, is revisited with new insights associating it with the appearnace at low temperatures of field-induced boson insulating states. Within the framework of the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau functional approach, we pinpoint the origin of these states in field-induced extreme softening of fluctuation modes over a large region in momentum space, upon diminishing temperature, which drives Cooper-pair fluctuations to condense into mesoscopic puddles in real space. Dynamical quantum tunneling of Cooper-pair fluctuations out of these puddles, introduced within a phenomenological approach, which break into mobile single-electron states, contains the high-field resistance onset predicted by the exclusive boson theory.

Dimensionality of the Superconductivity in the Transition Metal Pnictide WP

We report theoretical and experimental results on the transition metal pnictide WP. The theoretical outcomes based on tight-binding calculations and density functional theory indicate that WP is a three-dimensional superconductor with an anisotropic electronic structure and nonsymmorphic symmetries. On the other hand, magnetoresistance experimental data and the analysis of superconducting fluctuations of the conductivity in external magnetic field indicate a weakly anisotropic three-dimensional superconducting phase.

Anisotropy dependence of the fluctuation spectroscopy in the critical and gaussian regimes in superconducting NaFe1-xCo x As single crystals

We investigate thermal fluctuations in terms of diamagnetism and magnetotransport in superconducting NaFe_1−xCo_xAs single crystals with different doping levels. Results show that in the case of optimal doped and lightly overdoped (x = 0.03, 0.05) crystals the analysis in the critical as well as in the Gaussian fluctuation regions is consistent with the Ginzburg-Landau 3D fluctuation theory. However, in the case of strongly overdoped samples (x ≥ 0.07) the Ullah-Dorsey scaling of the fluctuation induced magnetoconductivity in the critical region confirms that thermal fluctuations exhibit a 3D anisotropic nature only in a narrow temperature region around T_c(H). This is consistent with the fact that in these samples the fluctuation effects in the Gaussian region above T_c may be described by the Lawrence-Doniach approach. Our results indicate that the anisotropy of these materials increases significantly with the doping level.

Quantum phase transitions in highly crystalline two-dimensional superconductors

Superconductor-insulator transition is one of the remarkable phenomena driven by quantum fluctuation in two-dimensional (2D) systems. Such a quantum phase transition (QPT) was investigated predominantly on highly disordered thin films with amorphous or granular structures using scaling law with constant exponents. Here, we provide a totally different view of QPT in highly crystalline 2D superconductors. According to the magneto-transport measurements in 2D superconducting ZrNCl and MoS₂, we found that the quantum metallic state commonly observed at low magnetic fields is converted via the quantum Griffiths state to the weakly localized metal at high magnetic fields. The scaling behavior, characterized by the diverging dynamical critical exponent (Griffiths singularity), indicates that the quantum fluctuation manifests itself as superconducting puddles, in marked contrast to the thermal fluctuation. We suggest that an evolution from the quantum metallic to the quantum Griffiths state is generic nature in highly crystalline 2D superconductors with weak pinning potentials.

Inhomogeneous superconductivity in organic conductors: the role of disorder and magnetic field

Several experimental studies have shown the presence of spatially inhomogeneous phase coexistence of superconducting and non-superconducting domains in low dimensional organic superconductors. The superconducting properties of these systems are found to be strongly dependent on the amount of disorder introduced in the sample regardless of its origin. The suppression of the superconducting transition temperature T(c) shows a clear discrepancy with the result expected from the Abrikosov-Gor'kov law giving the behavior of T(c) with impurities. On the basis of the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory, we derive a model to account for this striking feature of T(c) in organic superconductors for different types of disorder by considering the segregated texture of the system. We show that the calculated T(c) quantitatively agrees with experiments. We also focus on the effect of superconducting fluctuations on the upper critical fields H(c2) of layered superconductors showing slab structure where superconducting domains are sandwiched by non-superconducting regions. We found that H(c2) may be strongly enhanced by such fluctuations.

Giant Nernst effect due to fluctuating cooper pairs in superconductors

A theory of the fluctuation-induced Nernst effect is developed for a two-dimensional superconductor in a perpendicular magnetic field. First, we derive a simple phenomenological formula for the Nernst coefficient, which naturally explains the giant Nernst signal due to fluctuating Cooper pairs. The latter signal is shown to be large even far from the transition and may exceed by orders of magnitude the Fermi liquid terms. We also present a complete microscopic calculation of the Nernst coefficient for arbitrary magnetic fields and temperatures, which is based on the Matsubara-Kubo formalism. It is shown that the magnitude and the behavior of the Nernst signal observed experimentally in disordered superconducting films can be well understood on the basis of superconducting fluctuation theory.

Gaussian superconducting fluctuations, thermal transport, and the nernst effect

We calculate the contribution of superconducting fluctuations to thermal transport in the normal state, at low magnetic fields. We do so in the Gaussian approximation to their critical dynamics which is also the Aslamazov-Larkin approximation in the microscopics. Our results for the thermal conductivity tensor and the transverse thermoelectric response are new. The latter compare favorably with the data of Ong and collaborators on the Nernst effect in the cuprates.

Macroscopic phase separation in high-temperature superconductors

High-temperature superconductivity is recovered by introducing extra holes to the Cu-O planes, which initially are insulating with antiferromagnetism. In this paper I present data to show the macroscopic electronic phase separation that is caused by either mobile doping or electronic instability in the overdoped region. My results clearly demonstrate that the electronic inhomogeneity is probably a general feature of high-temperature superconductors.

Same superconducting criticality for underdoped and overdoped La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals

By measuring the superconducting diamagnetic moments for an underdoped and an overdoped La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystal with equal quality and roughly equal transition temperatures, it is found that the underdoped sample has only one transition which corresponds to H(c2), but the overdoped sample has two transitions with the higher one at H(c2). Further investigation reveals the same upper-critical field H(c2) for both samples although the overall charge densities are very different, indicating the possibility of a very direct and detailed equivalence of the superconducting condensation process in the two doping limits. The second transition for the overdoped sample can be understood as the bulk coupling between the superconducting clusters produced by macroscopic phase separation.