Universal sheet resistance and revised phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductors

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 110; no. 30; pp. 12235 - 12240
• Main Authors: Barišić, Neven, Chan, Mun K., Li, Yuan, Yu, Guichuan, Zhao, Xudong, Dressel, Martin, Smontara, Ana, Greven, Martin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 23.07.2013; National Acad Sciences
• Subjects: Chemical compounds; Copper; Crystal structure; Cuprates; Doping; Electrical resistivity; Fermi liquids; Fermi surfaces; High temperature; Magnetic fields; Oxygen; Phase diagrams; Physical Sciences; Superconductivity; Superconductors; Temperature dependence
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1301989110

Upon introducing charge carriers into the copper–oxygen sheets of the enigmatic lamellar cuprates, the ground state evolves from an insulator to a superconductor and eventually to a seemingly conventional metal (a Fermi liquid). Much has remained elusive about the nature of this evolution and about the peculiar metallic state at intermediate hole-carrier concentrations (p). The planar resistivity of this unconventional metal exhibits a linear temperature dependence (ρ ∝ T) that is disrupted upon cooling toward the superconducting state by the opening of a partial gap (the pseudogap) on the Fermi surface. Here, we first demonstrate for the quintessential compound HgBa ₂CuO ₄₊δ a dramatic switch from linear to purely quadratic (Fermi liquid-like, ρ ∝ T ²) resistive behavior in the pseudogap regime. Despite the considerable variation in crystal structures and disorder among different compounds, our result together with prior work gives insight into the p-T phase diagram and reveals the fundamental resistance per copper–oxygen sheet in both linear (ρ = A ₁T) and quadratic (ρ = A ₂T ²) regimes, with A ₁ ∝ A ₂ ∝ 1/p. Theoretical models can now be benchmarked against this remarkably simple universal behavior. Deviations from this underlying behavior can be expected to lead to new insight into the nonuniversal features exhibited by certain compounds.