Onset of a Boson mode at the superconducting critical point of underdoped YBa2Cu3Oy

Large oscillatory thermal hall effect in kagome metals

The thermal Hall effect recently provided intriguing probes to the ground state of exotic quantum matters. These observations of transverse thermal Hall signals lead to the debate on the fermionic versus bosonic origins of these phenomena. The recent report of quantum oscillations (QOs) in Kitaev spin liquid points to a possible resolution. The Landau level quantization would most likely capture only the fermionic thermal transport effect. However, the QOs in the thermal Hall effect are generally hard to detect. In this work, we report the observation of a large oscillatory thermal Hall effect of correlated Kagome metals. We detect a 180-degree phase change of the oscillation and demonstrate the phase flip as an essential feature for QOs in the thermal transport properties. More importantly, the QOs in the thermal Hall channel are more profound than those in the electrical Hall channel, which strongly violates the Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law for QOs. This result presents the oscillatory thermal Hall effect as a powerful probe to the correlated quantum materials.

Anderson Localization of Phonons in Thermally Superinsulating Graphene Aerogels with Metal-Like Electrical Conductivity

In the quest to improve energy efficiency and design better thermal insulators, various engineering strategies have been extensively investigated to minimize heat transfer through a material. Yet, the suppression of thermal transport in a material remains elusive because heat can be transferred by multiple energy carriers. Here, the realization of Anderson localization of phonons in a random 3D elastic network of graphene is reported. It is shown that thermal conductivity in a cellular graphene aerogel can be drastically reduced to 0.9 mW m-1 K-1 by the application of compressive strain while keeping a high metal-like electrical conductivity of 120 S m-1 and ampacity of 0.9 A. The experiments reveal that the strain can cause phonon localization over a broad compression range. The remaining heat flow in the material is dominated by charge transport. Conversely, electrical conductivity exhibits a gradual increase with increasing compressive strain, opposite to the thermal conductivity. These results imply that strain engineering provides the ability to independently tune charge and heat transport, establishing a new paradigm for controlling phonon and charge conduction in solids. This approach will enable the development of a new type of high-performance insulation solutions and thermally superinsulating materials with metal-like electrical conductivity.

Thermal Management in Neuromorphic Materials, Devices, and Networks

Machine learning has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years, often referred to as an "artificial intelligence revolution." Biological systems inspire the fundamental approach for this new computing paradigm: using neural networks to classify large amounts of data into sorting categories. Current machine-learning schemes implement simulated neurons and synapses on standard computers based on a von Neumann architecture. This approach is inefficient in energy consumption, and thermal management, motivating the search for hardware-based systems that imitate the brain. Here, the present state of thermal management of neuromorphic computing technology and the challenges and opportunities of the energy-efficient implementation of neuromorphic devices are considered. The main features of brain-inspired computing and quantum materials for implementing neuromorphic devices are briefly described, the brain criticality and resistive switching-based neuromorphic devices are discussed, the energy and electrical considerations for spiking-based computation are presented, the fundamental features of the brain's thermal regulation are addressed, the physical mechanisms for thermal management and thermoelectric control of materials and neuromorphic devices are analyzed, and challenges and new avenues for implementing energy-efficient computing are described.

Superconductor-insulator transition in space charge doped one unit cell Bi2.1Sr1.9CaCu2O8+x

The superconductor-insulator transition in two dimensions is a prototype continuous quantum phase transition at absolute zero, driven by a parameter other than temperature. Here we reveal this transition in one unit-cell Bi_2.1Sr_1.9CaCu₂O_8+x by space charge doping, a field effect electrostatic doping technique. We determine the related critical parameters and develop a reliable way to estimate doping in the nonsuperconducting region, a crucial and central problem in these materials. Finite-size scaling analysis yields a critical doping of 0.057 holes/Cu, a critical resistance of ~6.85 kΩ and a scaling exponent product νz ~ 1.57. These results, together with earlier work in other materials, provide a coherent picture of the superconductor-insulator transition and its bosonic nature in the underdoped regime of emerging superconductivity in high critical temperature superconductors.

Previous work on critical scaling at the superconductor-to-insulator transition has shown variations across different materials. Here, the authors use a space charge doping technique to tune the transition in a single layer cuprate sample and present evidence of the universal scaling behaviour.

Possible itinerant excitations and quantum spin state transitions in the effective spin-1/2 triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Na2BaCo(PO4)2

The most fascinating feature of certain two-dimensional (2D) gapless quantum spin liquid (QSL) is that their spinon excitations behave like the fermionic carriers of a paramagnetic metal. The spinon Fermi surface is then expected to produce a linear increase of the thermal conductivity with temperature that should manifest via a residual value (κ₀/T) in the zero-temperature limit. However, this linear in T behavior has been reported for very few QSL candidates. Here, we studied the ultralow-temperature thermal conductivity of an effective spin-1/2 triangular QSL candidate Na₂BaCo(PO₄)₂, which has an antiferromagnetic order at very low temperature (T_N ~ 148 mK), and observed a finite κ₀/T extrapolated from the data above T_N. Moreover, while approaching zero temperature, it exhibits series of quantum spin state transitions with applied field along the c axis. These observations indicate that Na₂BaCo(PO₄)₂ possibly behaves as a gapless QSL with itinerant spin excitations above T_N and its strong quantum spin fluctuations persist below T_N.

Logarithmic Upturn in Low-Temperature Electronic Transport as a Signature of d-Wave Order in Cuprate Superconductors

In cuprate superconductors, high magnetic fields have been used extensively to suppress superconductivity and expose the underlying normal state. Early measurements revealed insulatinglike behavior in underdoped material versus temperature T, in which resistivity increases on cooling with a puzzling log(1/T) form. We instead use microwave measurements of flux-flow resistivity in YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{6+y} and Tl_{2}Ba_{2}CuO_{6+δ} to study charge transport deep inside the superconducting phase, in the low-temperature and low-field regime. Here, the transition from metallic low-temperature resistivity (dρ/dT>0) to a log(1/T) upturn persists throughout the superconducting doping range, including a regime at high carrier dopings in which the field-revealed normal-state resistivity is Fermi-liquid-like. The log(1/T) form is thus likely a signature of d-wave superconducting order, and the field-revealed normal state's log(1/T) resistivity may indicate the free-flux-flow regime of a phase-disordered d-wave superconductor.

Hidden Fermi-liquid Charge Transport in the Antiferromagnetic Phase of the Electron-Doped Cuprate Superconductors

Systematic analysis of the planar resistivity, Hall effect, and cotangent of the Hall angle for the electron-doped cuprates reveals underlying Fermi-liquid behavior even deep in the antiferromagnetic part of the phase diagram. The transport scattering rate exhibits a quadratic temperature dependence, and is nearly independent of doping and compound and carrier type (electrons versus holes), and hence is universal. Our analysis moreover indicates that the material-specific resistivity upturn at low temperatures and low doping has the same origin in both electron- and hole-doped cuprates.

Electrostatic control of the evolution from a superconducting phase to an insulating phase in ultrathin YBa₂Cu₃O(7-x) films

The electrical transport properties of ultrathin YBa₂Cu₃O(7-x) films have been modified using an electric double layer transistor configuration employing an ionic liquid. A clear evolution from superconductor to insulator was observed in nominally 7 unit-cell-thick films. Using a finite size scaling analysis, curves of resistance versus temperature, R(T), over the temperature range from 6 to 22 K were found to collapse onto a single scaling function, which suggests the presence of a quantum critical point. However, the scaling fails at the lowest temperatures indicating the possible presence of an additional phase between the superconducting and insulating regimes.