Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions

Zhou, Panpan; Chen, Liyang; Liu, Yue; Sochnikov, Ilya; Bollinger, Anthony T.; Han, Myung-Geun; Zhu, Yimei; He, Xi; Boz̆ović, Ivan; Natelson, Douglas

doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7

Title: Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions

Journal Article · Wed Aug 21 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nature (London)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7· OSTI ID:1566821

Zhou, Panpan ^[1]; Chen, Liyang ^[1]; Liu, Yue ^[2]; Sochnikov, Ilya ^[3]; Bollinger, Anthony T. ^[4]; Han, Myung-Geun ^[4]; Zhu, Yimei ^[4]; He, Xi ^[5];

^[6]; Natelson, Douglas ^[1]

Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (United States)
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)

In the quest to understand high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxides, debate has been focused on the pseudogap—a partial energy gap that opens over portions of the Fermi surface in the ‘normal’ state above the bulk critical temperature. The pseudogap has been attributed to precursor superconductivity, to the existence of preformed pairs and to competing orders such as charge-density waves. A direct determination of the charge of carriers as a function of temperature and bias could help resolve among these alternatives. Here we report measurements of the shot noise of tunnelling current in high-quality La_2-xSr_xCuO₄/La₂CuO₄/La_2-xSr_xCuO₄ (LSCO/LCO/LSCO) heterostructures fabricated using atomic layer-by-layer molecular beam epitaxy at several doping levels. The data delineate three distinct regions in the bias voltage–temperature space. Well outside the superconducting gap region, the shot noise agrees quantitatively with independent tunnelling of individual charge carriers. Deep within the superconducting gap, shot noise is greatly enhanced, reminiscent of multiple Andreev reflections. Above the critical temperature and extending to biases much larger than the superconducting gap, there is a broad region in which the noise substantially exceeds theoretical expectations for single-charge tunnelling, indicating pairing of charge carriers. These pairs are detectable deep into the pseudogap region of temperature and bias. The presence of these pairs constrains current models of the pseudogap and broken symmetry states, while phase fluctuations limit the domain of superconductivity.

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Research Organization:: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012704; FG02-06ER46337; GBMF4410; NSF DMR-1704264

OSTI ID:: 1566821

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1601812

Report Number(s):: BNL-212109-2019-JAAM; TRN: US2000998

Journal Information:: Nature (London), Vol. 572, Issue 7770; ISSN 0028-0836

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 37 works

Citation information provided by
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75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
superconductivity
shot noise
electronic properties and materials
superconducting properties and materials
surfaces
interfaces and thin films

Dataset reporting measurements of shot noise of tunneling current in La2-xSrxCuO4/La2CuO4/La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO/LCO/LSCO) heterostructures Zhou, Panpan; Chen, Liyang; Liu, Yue https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8247140 The current record is supplemented by this dataset	dataset	January 2020
Dataset reporting measurements of shot noise of tunneling current in La2-xSrxCuO4/La2CuO4/La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO/LCO/LSCO) heterostructures Zhou, Panpan; Chen, Liyang; Liu, Yue https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8247140.v1 The current record is supplemented by this dataset	dataset	January 2020