Puddle formation and persistent gaps across the non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;Sr&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;CuO&lt;sub&gt;6+δ&lt;/sub&gt;

Tromp, Willem O.; Benschop, Tjerk; Ge, Jian Feng; Battisti, Irene; Bastiaans, K.M.; Chatzopoulos, Damianos; Vervloet, Amber H.M.; Smit, Steef; Yin, Yi

doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01497-1

Puddle formation and persistent gaps across the non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)₂Sr₂CuO_6+δ

Title

Puddle formation and persistent gaps across the non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)₂Sr₂CuO_6+δ

Author

Tromp, Willem O. (Universiteit Leiden)
Benschop, Tjerk (Universiteit Leiden)
Ge, Jian Feng (Universiteit Leiden)
Battisti, Irene (Universiteit Leiden)
Bastiaans, K.M. (TU Delft QN/Otte Lab; Universiteit Leiden; Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)
Chatzopoulos, Damianos (Universiteit Leiden)
Vervloet, Amber H.M. (Universiteit Leiden)
Smit, Steef (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Yin, Yi (Nanjing University; Zhejiang University)

Date

2023

Abstract

The cuprate high-temperature superconductors exhibit many unexplained electronic phases, but the superconductivity at high doping is often believed to be governed by conventional mean-field Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory¹. However, it was shown that the superfluid density vanishes when the transition temperature goes to zero^2,3, in contradiction to expectations from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory. Our scanning tunnelling spectroscopy measurements in the overdoped regime of the (Pb,Bi)₂Sr₂CuO_6+δ high-temperature superconductor show that this is due to the emergence of nanoscale superconducting puddles in a metallic matrix^4,5. Our measurements further reveal that this puddling is driven by gap filling instead of gap closing. The important implication is that it is not a diminishing pairing interaction that causes the breakdown of superconductivity. Unexpectedly, the measured gap-to-filling correlation also reveals that pair breaking by disorder does not play a dominant role and that the mechanism of superconductivity in overdoped cuprate superconductors is qualitatively different from conventional mean-field theory.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01497-1

ISSN

1476-1122

Source

Nature Materials, 22 (6), 703-709

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Puddle formation and persistent gaps across the non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)2Sr2CuO6+δ

Puddle formation and persistent gaps across the non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)₂Sr₂CuO_6+δ