Pre-formed Cooper pairs in copper oxides and LaAlO3—SrTiO3 heterostructures

Božović, Ivan; Levy, Jeremy

doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0915-8

Pre-formed Cooper pairs in copper oxides and LaAlO₃—SrTiO₃ heterostructures

Journal Article · Tue Jul 07 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Nature Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0915-8· OSTI ID:1631027

^[1]; ^[2]

Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Pittsburgh Quantum Inst., PA (United States)

The Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory of superconductivity and the Landau–Fermi liquid theory form the basis of our current understanding of conventional superconductors and their parent non-superconducting phases. However, some exotic superconductors do not conform to this physical picture but instead feature an unusual ‘normal’ state that is not a Fermi liquid. One explanation of this unusual behaviour is that pre-formed pairs of electrons are established above the superconducting temperature T_c. Here, we highlight recent experiments that show the likely existence of these pre-formed pairs in two rather different materials—a high-temperature cuprate superconductor and strontium titanate. Moreover, in both materials the normal state from which superconductivity emerges has other shared properties, including a pseudogap and electronic nematicity—rotational symmetry breaking in the electron fluid that is not expected in Fermi liquid theory nor more generally from the crystal lattice symmetry. These experimental findings should provoke more interaction between the communities working on these materials and new insights into the underlying mechanism of the creation of pre-formed pairs.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012704

OSTI ID:: 1631027

Report Number(s):: BNL--215951-2020-JAAM

Journal Information:: Nature Physics, Journal Name: Nature Physics Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 16; ISSN 1745-2473

Publisher:: Nature Publishing Group (NPG)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (49)

Bose condensation in an attractive fermion gas: From weak to strong coupling superconductivity Nozi�res, P.; Schmitt-Rink, S. Journal of Low Temperature Physics, Vol. 59, Issue 3-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00683774	journal	May 1985
Boson-Fermion model of superconductivity Friedberg, R.; Lee, T. D. Physics Letters A, Vol. 138, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9601(89)90844-X	journal	July 1989
A spatial interpretation of emerging superconductivity in lightly doped cuprates Deutscher, Guy; de Gennes, Pierre-Gilles Comptes Rendus Physique, Vol. 8, Issue 7-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crhy.2007.08.004	journal	September 2007
BCS–BEC crossover: From high temperature superconductors to ultracold superfluids Chen, Q.; Stajic, J.; Tan, S. Physics Reports, Vol. 412, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2005.02.005	journal	June 2005
Inhomogeneous superconductivity and the “pseudogap” state of novel superconductors Kresin, V.; Ovchinnikov, Y.; Wolf, S. Physics Reports, Vol. 431, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2006.05.006	journal	September 2006
Quantized Ballistic Transport of Electrons and Electron Pairs in LaAlO ₃ /SrTiO ₃ Nanowires Annadi, Anil; Cheng, Guanglei; Lee, Hyungwoo Nano Letters, Vol. 18, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01614	journal	June 2018
Electronic liquid-crystal phases of a doped Mott insulator Kivelson, S. A.; Fradkin, E.; Emery, V. J. Nature, Vol. 393, Issue 6685 https://doi.org/10.1038/31177	journal	June 1998
Evidence for polaronic supercarriers in the copper oxide superconductors La2–xSrxCuO4 Zhao, Guo-meng; Hunt, M. B.; Keller, H. Nature, Vol. 385, Issue 6613 https://doi.org/10.1038/385236a0	journal	January 1997
Emergence of a molecular Bose–Einstein condensate from a Fermi gas Greiner, Markus; Regal, Cindy A.; Jin, Deborah S. Nature, Vol. 426, Issue 6966 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02199	journal	November 2003
Atomic-scale imaging of nanoengineered oxygen vacancy profiles in SrTiO3 Muller, David A.; Nakagawa, Naoyuki; Ohtomo, Akira Nature, Vol. 430, Issue 7000 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02756	journal	August 2004
Electric field control of the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface ground state Caviglia, A. D.; Gariglio, S.; Reyren, N. Nature, Vol. 456, Issue 7222 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07576	journal	December 2008
Interface superconductor with gap behaviour like a high-temperature superconductor Richter, C.; Boschker, H.; Dietsche, W. Nature, Vol. 502, Issue 7472 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12494	journal	October 2013
Electron pairing without superconductivity Cheng, Guanglei; Tomczyk, Michelle; Lu, Shicheng Nature, Vol. 521, Issue 7551 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14398	journal	May 2015
Detection of a Cooper-pair density wave in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x Hamidian, M. H.; Edkins, S. D.; Joo, Sang Hyun Nature, Vol. 532, Issue 7599 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17411	journal	April 2016
Dependence of the critical temperature in overdoped copper oxides on superfluid density Božović, I.; He, X.; Wu, J. Nature, Vol. 536, Issue 7616 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19061	journal	August 2016
Spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry in copper oxide superconductors Wu, J.; Bollinger, A. T.; He, X. Nature, Vol. 547, Issue 7664 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23290	journal	July 2017
A universal critical density underlying the physics of electrons at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface Joshua, Arjun; Pecker, S.; Ruhman, J. Nature Communications, Vol. 3, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2116	journal	January 2012
Strong correlations elucidate the electronic structure and phase diagram of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface Maniv, E.; Shalom, M. Ben; Ron, A. Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9239	journal	September 2015
Nanoscale control of an interfacial metal–insulator transition at room temperature Cen, C.; Thiel, S.; Hammerl, G. Nature Materials, Vol. 7, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2136	journal	March 2008
Locally enhanced conductivity due to the tetragonal domain structure in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterointerfaces Kalisky, Beena; Spanton, Eric M.; Noad, Hilary Nature Materials, Vol. 12, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3753	journal	September 2013
Local electrostatic imaging of striped domain order in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 Honig, M.; Sulpizio, J. A.; Drori, J. Nature Materials, Vol. 12, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3810	journal	November 2013
Localization of preformed Cooper pairs in disordered superconductors Sacépé, Benjamin; Dubouchet, Thomas; Chapelier, Claude Nature Physics, Vol. 7, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1892	journal	January 2011
Quantum breakdown of superconductivity in low-dimensional materials Sacépé, Benjamin; Feigel’man, Mikhail; Klapwijk, Teunis M. Nature Physics, Vol. 16, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0905-x	journal	July 2020
Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions Zhou, Panpan; Chen, Liyang; Liu, Yue Nature, Vol. 572, Issue 7770 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7	journal	August 2019
Gate-tunable polarized phase of two-dimensional electrons at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface Joshua, A.; Ruhman, J.; Pecker, S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 110, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1221453110	journal	May 2013
Physics of SrTiO ₃ -based heterostructures and nanostructures: a review Pai, Yun-Yi; Tylan-Tyler, Anthony; Irvin, Patrick Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 81, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/aa892d	journal	February 2018
Theory of Superconductivity Bardeen, J.; Cooper, L. N.; Schrieffer, J. R. Physical Review, Vol. 108, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.108.1175	journal	December 1957
Superconducting Transition Temperatures of Semiconducting SrTi O 3 Koonce, C. S.; Cohen, Marvin L.; Schooley, J. F. Physical Review, Vol. 163, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.163.380	journal	November 1967
Possible Pairing without Superconductivity at Low Carrier Concentrations in Bulk and Thin-Film Superconducting Semiconductors Eagles, D. M. Physical Review, Vol. 186, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.186.456	journal	October 1969
Spin-gap proximity effect mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity Emery, V. J.; Kivelson, S. A.; Zachar, O. Physical Review B, Vol. 56, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.56.6120	journal	September 1997
Anisotropic magnetotransport at the SrTiO3/LaAlO3 interface Ben Shalom, M.; Tai, C. W.; Lereah, Y. Physical Review B, Vol. 80, Issue 14, Article No. 140303 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.140403	journal	October 2009
Rashba induced magnetoconductance oscillations in the LaAlO 3 -SrTiO 3 heterostructure Fête, A.; Gariglio, S.; Caviglia, A. D. Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 20 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.201105	journal	November 2012
Non-Fermi-liquid scattering against an emergent Bose liquid: Manifestations in the kink and other exotic quasiparticle behavior in the normal-state cuprate superconductors Jiang, Shengtao; Zou, Long; Ku, Wei Physical Review B, Vol. 99, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.99.104507	journal	March 2019
Pseudogaps and Emergence of Coherence in Two-Dimensional Electron Liquids in SrTiO 3 Marshall, Patrick B.; Mikheev, Evgeny; Raghavan, Santosh Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.046402	journal	July 2016
Gate-Tunable Band Structure of the LaAlO 3 − SrTi O 3 Interface Smink, A. E. M.; de Boer, J. C.; Stehno, M. P. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 118, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.106401	journal	March 2017
Superconductivity in Semiconducting SrTi O 3 Schooley, J. F.; Hosler, W. R.; Cohen, Marvin L. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.12.474	journal	April 1964
One-Dimensional Nature of Superconductivity at the LaAlO 3 / SrTiO 3 Interface Pai, Yun-Yi; Lee, Hyungwoo; Lee, Jung-Woo Physical Review Letters, Vol. 120, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.147001	journal	April 2018
Unconventional Multiband Superconductivity in Bulk SrTiO 3 and LaAlO 3 / SrTiO 3 Interfaces Trevisan, Thaís V.; Schütt, Michael; Fernandes, Rafael M. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.127002	journal	September 2018
Locating the Missing Superconducting Electrons in the Overdoped Cuprates La 2 − x Sr x CuO 4 Mahmood, Fahad; He, Xi; Božović, Ivan Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.027003	journal	January 2019
Experimental evidence for parity-based 2 e periodicity in a superconducting single-electron tunneling transistor Tuominen, M. T.; Hergenrother, J. M.; Tighe, T. S. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 69, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.69.1997	journal	September 1992
Nobel lecture: When atoms behave as waves: Bose-Einstein condensation and the atom laser Ketterle, Wolfgang Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 74, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.74.1131	journal	November 2002
Nobel Lecture: Bose-Einstein condensation in a dilute gas, the first 70 years and some recent experiments Cornell, E. A.; Wieman, C. E. Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 74, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.74.875	journal	August 2002
Angle-resolved photoemission studies of the cuprate superconductors Damascelli, Andrea; Hussain, Zahid; Shen, Zhi-Xun Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 75, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.75.473	journal	April 2003
Enhancing superconductivity in SrTiO 3 films with strain Ahadi, Kaveh; Galletti, Luca; Li, Yuntian Science Advances, Vol. 5, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw0120	journal	April 2019
Superconducting Interfaces Between Insulating Oxides Reyren, N.; Thiel, S.; Caviglia, A. D. Science, Vol. 317, Issue 5842 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1146006	journal	August 2007
Pascal conductance series in ballistic one-dimensional LaAlO ₃ /SrTiO ₃ channels Briggeman, Megan; Tomczyk, Michelle; Tian, Binbin Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6479 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat6467	journal	February 2020
Electron pairs for HTSC Andreev, A. F. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics Letters, Vol. 79, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1134/1.1690358	journal	January 2004
Crossover from Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer to Bose-Einstein Condensation and the Unitary Fermi Gas Randeria, Mohit; Taylor, Edward Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-031113-133829	journal	March 2014
Nematic Fermi Fluids in Condensed Matter Physics Fradkin, Eduardo; Kivelson, Steven A.; Lawler, Michael J. Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 1, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-070909-103925	journal	August 2010

Similar Records

Pairing in a dry Fermi sea

Journal Article · Thu Jun 16 20:00:00 EDT 2016 · Nature Communications · OSTI ID:1302900

Spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry in copper oxide superconductors

Journal Article · Tue Jul 25 20:00:00 EDT 2017 · Nature (London) · OSTI ID:1412648

Electron pairing and nematicity in LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃ nanostructures

Journal Article · Wed Nov 22 19:00:00 EST 2023 · Nature Communications · OSTI ID:2472360

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Electronic properties and materials
Superconducting properties and materials

Pre-formed Cooper pairs in copper oxides and LaAlO3—SrTiO3 heterostructures

Citation Formats

References (49)

Similar Records

Related Subjects

Pre-formed Cooper pairs in copper oxides and LaAlO₃—SrTiO₃ heterostructures