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Author(s): Nair, NL; Boulanger, ME; Laliberte, F; Griffin, S; Channa, S; Legros, A; Tabis, W; Proust, C; Neaton, J; Taillefer, L; Analytis, JG | Abstract: We study Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in single crystals of TaAs and find a previously undetected two-dimensional quantum oscillation that does not belong to the bulk Fermi surface. We cannot find an impurity phase consistent with our observations, and extensive diffraction measurements have not shown the presence of known impurity phases. We conjecture that the frequency originates from surface states that are sensitive to surface disorder. One candidate is the interference of coherent quasiparticles traversing two distinct Fermi arcs on the [001] crystallographic surface. The frequency and effective mass quantitatively agree with predictions of density functional theory and previous angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements of the Fermi arcs.

Using resonant x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, we study charge correlations and lattice dynamics in two model cuprates, ${\mathrm{HgBa}}_{2}{\mathrm{CuO}}_{4+\ensuremath{\delta}}$ and ${\mathrm{HgBa}}_{2}{\mathrm{CaCu}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{6+\ensuremath{\delta}}$. We observe a maximum of the characteristic charge order temperature around the same hole concentration ($p\ensuremath{\approx}0.09$) in both compounds, and concomitant pronounced anomalies in the lattice dynamics that involve the motion of atoms in and/or adjacent to the ${\mathrm{CuO}}_{2}$ layers. These anomalies are already present at room temperature, and therefore precede the formation of the static charge correlations, and we attribute them to an instability of the ${\mathrm{CuO}}_{2}$ layers. Our finding implies that the charge order in the cuprates is an emergent phenomenon, driven by a fundamental variation in both lattice and electronic properties as a function of doping.

Sophisticated x-ray scattering experiments reveal charge dynamics in a model cuprate compound, providing crucial insight into the connection between high-temperature superconductivity and other electronic behaviors in these materials.

The perfectly linear temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity observed as T → 0 in a variety of metals close to a quantum critical point1–4 is a major puzzle of condensed-matter physics5. Here we show that T-linear resistivity as T → 0 is a generic property of cuprates, associated with a universal scattering rate. We measured the low-temperature resistivity of the bilayer cuprate Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ and found that it exhibits a T-linear dependence with the same slope as in the single-layer cuprates Bi2Sr2CuO6+δ (ref. 6), La1.6−xNd0.4SrxCuO4 (ref. 7) and La2−xSrxCuO4 (ref. 8), despite their very different Fermi surfaces and structural, superconducting and magnetic properties. We then show that the T-linear coefficient (per CuO2 plane), A1□, is given by the universal relation A1□TF = h/2e2, where e is the electron charge, h is the Planck constant and TF is the Fermi temperature. This relation, obtained by assuming that the scattering rate 1/τ of charge carriers reaches the Planckian limit9,10, whereby ħ/τ = kBT, works not only for hole-doped cuprates6–8,11,12 but also for electron-doped cuprates13,14, despite the different nature of their quantum critical point and strength of their electron correlations. A transport study of overdoped cuprates reveals a resistivity that is linear as the temperature approaches 0 K, and is associated with a universal scattering rate.

After three decades of enormous scientific inquiry, the emergence of superconductivity in the cuprates remains an unsolved puzzle. One major challenge has been to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of the unusual metallic normal state from which the superconducting state emerges upon cooling. A second challenge has been to achieve a unified understanding of hole- and electron-doped compounds. Here we report detailed magnetoresistivity measurements for the archetypal electron-doped cuprate Nd$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_{4+{\delta}}$ that, in combination with prior data, provide crucial links between the normal and superconducting states and between the electron- and hole-doped parts of the phase diagram. The characteristics of the normal state (magnetoresistivity, quantum oscillations, and Hall coefficient) and those of the superconducting state (superfluid density and upper critical field) consistently indicate two-band (electron and hole) features and clearly point to hole-pocket-driven superconductivity in these nominally electron-doped materials. We show that the approximate Uemura scaling between the superconducting transition temperature and the superfluid density found for hole-doped cuprates also holds for the small hole component of the superfluid density in the electron-doped cuprates., Comment: to appear in Science Advances

The bulk magnetization, magnetocaloric effect, and heat capacity of polycrystalline NdFe0.5Mn0.5O3 have been studied in the temperature range of 1.5–300 K. The magnetic entropy change ( Δ S M ) shows a peak near 7 K at 100 kOe with a value of ∼7.22 J kg−1 K−1. Another magnetic entropy change is also observed between 0 and 40 kOe near the spin reorientation region of Fe3+/Mn3+ ions (∼45 K), wherein the entropy change gets suppressed with increasing field. The magnetic heat capacity shows a broad hump near the Neel temperature (∼250 K). Around 5 K, a step-like feature in heat capacity due to the Schottky effect is observed which is associated with the crystal field effects in Nd3+ ions.

Low-temperature measurements of the Hall effect in cuprate materials in which superconductivity is suppressed by high magnetic fields show that the pseudogap is not related to the charge ordering that has been seen at intermediate doping levels, but is instead linked to the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator at low doping. The possible origin of the enigmatic 'pseudogap' phase in the high-temperature superconductors comes into sharper focus in light of some new low-temperature Hall measurements at magnetic fields high enough to suppress the confounding effects of superconductivity. Louis Taillefer and colleagues are able to show that the psudogap is not, as some have suspected, related to the charge-ordering that has been seen at intermediate doping levels, but is instead linked to the Mott insulator state at low doping. The pseudogap is a partial gap in the electronic density of states that opens in the normal (non-superconducting) state of cuprate superconductors and whose origin is a long-standing puzzle. Its connection to the Mott insulator phase at low doping (hole concentration, p) remains ambiguous1 and its relation to the charge order2,3,4 that reconstructs the Fermi surface5,6 at intermediate doping is still unclear7,8,9,10. Here we use measurements of the Hall coefficient in magnetic fields up to 88 tesla to show that Fermi-surface reconstruction by charge order in the cuprate YBa2Cu3Oy ends sharply at a critical doping p = 0.16 that is distinctly lower than the pseudogap critical point p* = 0.19 (ref. 11). This shows that the pseudogap and charge order are separate phenomena. We find that the change in carrier density n from n = 1 + p in the conventional metal at high doping (ref. 12) to n = p at low doping (ref. 13) starts at the pseudogap critical point. This shows that the pseudogap and the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator are linked.

Charge order has now been observed in several cuprate high-temperature superconductors. We report a resonant inelastic x-ray scattering experiment on the electron-doped cuprate ${\mathrm{Nd}}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Ce}}_{x}\mathrm{Cu}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}$ that demonstrates the existence of dynamic correlations at the charge-order wave vector. Upon cooling we observe a softening in the electronic response, which has been predicted to occur for a $d$-wave charge order in electron-doped cuprates. At low temperatures, the energy range of these excitations coincides with that of the dispersive magnetic modes known as paramagnons. Furthermore, measurements where the polarization of the scattered photon is resolved indicate that the dynamic response at the charge-order wave vector primarily involves spin-flip excitations. Overall, our findings indicate a coupling between dynamic magnetic and charge-order correlations in the cuprates.

Large unsaturated magnetoresistance has been recently reported in numerous semi-metals. Many of them have a topologically non-trivial band dispersion, such as Weyl nodes or lines. Here, we show that elemental antimony displays the largest high-field magnetoresistance among all known semi-metals. We present a detailed study of the angle-dependent magnetoresistance and use a semi-classical framework invoking an anisotropic mobility tensor to fit the data. A slight deviation from perfect compensation and a modest variation with magnetic field of the components of the mobility tensor are required to attain perfect fits at arbitrary strength and orientation of magnetic field in the entire temperature window of study. Our results demonstrate that large orbital magnetoresistance is an unavoidable consequence of low carrier concentration and the sub-quadratic magnetoresistance seen in many semi-metals can be attributed to field-dependent mobility, expected whenever the disorder length-scale exceeds the Fermi wavelength., Supplementary material on request

Physical review / B 96(13), 134510 (2017). doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.96.134510, We present a detailed synchrotron x-ray scattering study of the charge-density-wave (CDW) order in simple tetragonal $HgBa_{2}CuO_{4+δ}$ (Hg1201). Resonant soft x-ray scattering measurements reveal that short-range order appears at a temperature that is distinctly lower than the pseudogap temperature and in excellent agreement with a prior transient reflectivity result. Despite considerable structural differences between Hg1201 and $YBa_2Cu_3O_{6+δ}$, the CDW correlations exhibit similar doping dependencies, and we demonstrate a universal relationship between the CDW wave vector and the size of the reconstructed Fermi pocket observed in quantum oscillation experiments. The CDW correlations in Hg1201 vanish already below optimal doping, once the correlation length is comparable to the CDW modulation period, and they appear to be limited by the disorder potential from unit cells hosting two interstitial oxygen atoms. A complementary hard x-ray diffraction measurement, performed on an underdoped Hg1201 sample in magnetic fields along the crystallographic c axis of up to 16 T, provides information on the form factor of the CDW order. As expected from the single-$CuO_2$-layer structure of Hg1201, the CDW correlations vanish at half-integer values of L and appear to be peaked at integer $L$. We conclude that the atomic displacements associated with the short-range CDW order are mainly planar, within the $CuO_2$ layers., Published by APS, Woodbury, NY

The exciton dynamics in monolayer black phosphorus is investigated over a very wide range of photoexcited exciton densities using time resolved photoluminescence. At low excitation densities, the exciton dynamics is successfully described in terms of a double exponential decay. With increasing exciton population, a fast, non-exponential component develops as exciton-exciton annihilation takes over as the dominant recombination mechanism under high excitation conditions. Our results identify an upper limit for the injection density, after which exciton-exciton annihilation reduces the quantum yield, which will significantly impact the performance of light emitting devices based on single layer black phosphorus., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

The microscopic nature of an insulating state in the vicinity of a superconducting state, in the presence of disorder, is a hotly debated question. While the simplest scenario proposes that Coulomb interactions destroy the Cooper pairs at the transition, leading to localization of single electrons, an alternate possibility supported by experimental observations suggests that Cooper pairs instead directly localize. The question of the homogeneity, granularity, or possibly glassiness of the material on the verge of this transition is intimately related to this fundamental issue. Here, by combining macroscopic and nano-scale studies of superconducting ultrathin NbN films, we reveal nanoscopic electronic inhomogeneities that emerge when the film thickness is reduced. In addition, while thicker films display a purely two-dimensional behaviour in the superconducting fluctuations, we demonstrate a zero-dimensional regime for the thinner samples precisely on the scale of the inhomogeneities. Such behavior is somehow intermediate between the Fermi and Bose insulator paradigms and calls for further investigation to understand the way Cooper pairs continuously evolve from a bound state of fermionic objects into localized bosonic entities., 29 pages 9 figures

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.

Raman scattering and photoluminescence spectroscopy are used to investigate the optical properties of single layer black phosphorus obtained by mechanical exfoliation of bulk crystals under an argon atmosphere. The Raman spectroscopy, performed in situ on the same flake as the photoluminescence measurements, demonstrates the single layer character of the investigated samples. The emission spectra, dominated by excitonic effects, display the expected in plane anisotropy. The emission energy depends on the type of substrate on which the flake is placed due to the different dielectric screening. Finally, the blue shift of the emission with increasing temperature is well described using a two oscillator model for the temperature dependence of the band gap., 6 pages, 4 figures

Close to a zero temperature transition between ordered and disordered electronic phases, quantum fluctuations can lead to a strong enhancement of the electron mass and to the emergence of competing phases such as superconductivity. A correlation between the existence of such a quantum phase transition and superconductivity is quite well established in some heavy fermion and iron-based superconductors and there have been suggestions that high temperature superconductivity in the copper oxide materials (cuprates) may also be driven by the same mechanism. Close to optimal doping, where the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ is maximum in the cuprates, two different phases are known to compete with superconductivity: a poorly understood pseudogap phase and a charge ordered phase. Recent experiments have shown a strong increase in quasiparticle mass $m^*$ in the cuprate YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$ as optimal doping is approached suggesting that quantum fluctuations of the charge ordered phase may be responsible for the high-$T_c$ superconductivity. We have tested the robustness of this correlation between $m^*$ and $T_c$ by performing quantum oscillation studies on the stoichiometric compound YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ under hydrostatic pressure. In contrast to the results for YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$, we find that in YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ the mass decreases as $T_c$ increases under pressure. This inverse correlation between $m^*$ and $T_c$ suggests that quantum fluctuations of the charge order enhance $m^*$ but do not enhance $T_c$., Comment: 11 pages includes supplementary information

Charge-density-wave (CDW) correlations within the quintessential CuO$_2$ planes have been argued to either cause [1] or compete with [2] the superconductivity in the cuprates, and they might furthermore drive the Fermi-surface reconstruction in high magnetic fields implied by quantum oscillation (QO) experiments for YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+{\delta}}$ (YBCO) [3] and HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+{\delta}}$ (Hg1201) [4]. Consequently, the observation of bulk CDW order in YBCO was a significant development [5,6,7]. Hg1201 features particularly high structural symmetry and recently has been demonstrated to exhibit Fermi-liquid charge transport in the relevant temperature-doping range of the phase diagram, whereas for YBCO and other cuprates this underlying property of the CuO$_2$ planes is partially or fully masked [8-10]. It therefore is imperative to establish if the pristine transport behavior of Hg1201 is compatible with CDW order. Here we investigate Hg1201 ($T_c$ = 72 K) via bulk Cu L-edge resonant X-ray scattering. We indeed observe CDW correlations in the absence of a magnetic field, although the correlations and competition with superconductivity are weaker than in YBCO. Interestingly, at the measured hole-doping level, both the short-range CDW and Fermi-liquid transport appear below the same temperature of about 200 K. Our result points to a unifying picture in which the CDW formation is preceded at the higher pseudogap temperature by $q$ = 0 magnetic order [11,12] and the build-up of significant dynamic antiferromagnetic correlations [13]. Furthermore, the smaller CDW modulation wave vector observed for Hg1201 is consistent with the larger electron pocket implied by both QO [4] and Hall-effect [14] measurements, which suggests that CDW correlations are indeed responsible for the low-temperature QO phenomenon.

We use polarization-dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to study the high-energy anomaly (HEA) in the dispersion of ${\mathrm{Nd}}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Ce}}_{x}\mathrm{Cu}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}$, $x=0.123$. We find that at particular photon energies the anomalous, waterfall-like dispersion gives way to a broad, continuous band. This suggests that the HEA is a matrix element effect: it arises due to a suppression of the intensity of the broadened quasiparticle band in a narrow momentum range. We confirm this interpretation experimentally, by showing that the HEA appears when the matrix element is suppressed deliberately by changing the light polarization. Calculations of the matrix element using atomic wave functions and simulation of the ARPES intensity with one-step model calculations provide further evidence for this scenario. The possibility to detect the full quasiparticle dispersion further allows us to extract the high-energy self-energy function near the center and at the edge of the Brillouin zone.

We report in-plane resistivity (ρ) and transverse magnetoresistance (MR) measurements for underdoped HgBa(2)CuO(4+δ) (Hg1201). Contrary to the long-standing view that Kohler's rule is strongly violated in underdoped cuprates, we find that it is in fact satisfied in the pseudogap phase of Hg1201. The transverse MR shows a quadratic field dependence, δρ/ρ(0)=aH(2), with a(T)∝T(-4). In combination with the observed ρ∝T(2) dependence, this is consistent with a single Fermi-liquid quasiparticle scattering rate. We show that this behavior is typically masked in cuprates with lower structural symmetry or strong disorder effects.

The strain derivatives of ${T}_{c}$ along the $a$ and $c$ axes have been determined for HgBa${}_{2}$CuO${}_{4+\ensuremath{\delta}}$ (Hg1201), the simplest monolayer cuprate with the highest ${T}_{c}$ of all monolayer cuprates (${T}_{c}$ = 97 K at optimal doping). The underdoped compound with the initial ${T}_{c}$ of 65 K has been studied as a function of pressure up to 20 GPa by magnetic susceptibility and x-ray diffraction. The observed linear increase in ${T}_{c}$ with pressure is the same as previously found for the optimally doped compound. The above results have enabled an investigation of the origins of the significantly different ${T}_{c}$ values of optimally doped Hg1201 and the well-studied compound La${}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}$Sr${}_{x}$CuO${}_{4}$ (LSCO), which has a maximal ${T}_{c}$ of 40 K, or only $40%$ of that of Hg1201. Hg1201 can have almost identical CuO${}_{6}$ octahedra as LSCO if specifically strained. When the apical and in-plane CuO${}_{2}$ distances are the same for the two compounds, a large discrepancy in their ${T}_{c}$ remains. Differences in crystal structures and interactions involving the Hg-O charge reservoir layers of Hg1201 may be responsible for the different ${T}_{c}$ values exhibited by the two compounds.

High-temperature superconductivity (HTSC) mysteriously emerges upon doping holes or electrons into insulating copper oxides with antiferromagnetic (AFM) order. It has been thought that the large energy scale of magnetic excitations, compared to phonon energies for example, lies at the heart of an electronically-driven superconducting phase at high temperatures. However, despite extensive studies, little information is available for comparison of high-energy magnetic excitations of hole- and electron-doped superconductors to assess a possible correlation with the respective superconducting transition temperatures. Here, we use resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Cu L3-edge to reveal high-energy collective excitations in the archetype electron-doped cuprate Nd2-xCexCuO4 (NCCO). Surprisingly, despite the fact that the spin stiffness is zero and the AFM correlations are short-ranged, magnetic excitations harden significantly across the AFM-HTSC phase boundary, in stark contrast with the hole-doped cuprates. Furthermore, we find an unexpected and highly dispersive mode in superconducting NCCO that is undetected in the hole-doped compounds, which emanates from the zone center with a characteristic energy comparable to the pseudogap, and may signal a quantum phase distinct from superconductivity. The uncovered asymmetry in the high-energy collective excitations with respect to hole and electron doping provides additional constraints for modeling the HTSC cuprates., 23 pages, 8 figures, Submitted to Nature Physics

The metallic state of the underdoped high-Tc cuprates has remained an enigma: How may seemingly disconnected Fermi surface segments, observed in zero magnetic field as a result of the opening of a partial gap (the pseudogap), possess conventional quasiparticle properties? How do the small Fermi-surface pockets evidenced by the observation of quantum oscillations (QO) emerge as superconductivity is suppressed in high magnetic fields? Such QO, discovered in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.5 (Y123) and YBa2Cu4O8 (Y124), signify the existence of a conventional Fermi surface (FS). However, due to the complexity of the crystal structures of Y123 and Y124 (CuO2 double-layers, CuO chains, low structural symmetry), it has remained unclear if the QO are specific to this particular family of cuprates. Numerous theoretical proposals have been put forward to explain the route toward QO, including materials-specific scenarios involving CuO chains and scenarios involving the quintessential CuO2 planes. Here we report the observation of QO in underdoped HgBa2CuO4+{\delta} (Hg1201), a model cuprate superconductor with individual CuO2 layers, high tetragonal symmetry, and no CuO chains. This observation proves that QO are a universal property of the underdoped CuO2 planes, and it opens the door to quantitative future studies of the metallic state and of the Fermi-surface reconstruction phenomenon in this structurally simplest cuprate., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures