Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions
Abstract
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 La2-xSrxCuO4/La2CuO4/La2-xSrxCuO4 (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. Themore »
- Authors:
-
- 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)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- 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
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1566821
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1601812
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-212109-2019-JAAM
Journal ID: ISSN 0028-0836; TRN: US2000998
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012704; FG02-06ER46337; GBMF4410; NSF DMR-1704264
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature (London)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Nature (London); Journal Volume: 572; Journal Issue: 7770; Journal ID: ISSN 0028-0836
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; superconductivity; shot noise; electronic properties and materials; superconducting properties and materials; surfaces, interfaces and thin films
Citation Formats
Zhou, Panpan, Chen, Liyang, Liu, Yue, Sochnikov, Ilya, Bollinger, Anthony T., Han, Myung-Geun, Zhu, Yimei, He, Xi, Boz̆ović, Ivan, and Natelson, Douglas. Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7.
Zhou, Panpan, Chen, Liyang, Liu, Yue, Sochnikov, Ilya, Bollinger, Anthony T., Han, Myung-Geun, Zhu, Yimei, He, Xi, Boz̆ović, Ivan, & Natelson, Douglas. Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7
Zhou, Panpan, Chen, Liyang, Liu, Yue, Sochnikov, Ilya, Bollinger, Anthony T., Han, Myung-Geun, Zhu, Yimei, He, Xi, Boz̆ović, Ivan, and Natelson, Douglas. Wed .
"Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1566821.
@article{osti_1566821,
title = {Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions},
author = {Zhou, Panpan and Chen, Liyang and Liu, Yue and Sochnikov, Ilya and Bollinger, Anthony T. and Han, Myung-Geun and Zhu, Yimei and He, Xi and Boz̆ović, Ivan and Natelson, Douglas},
abstractNote = {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 La2-xSrxCuO4/La2CuO4/La2-xSrxCuO4 (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.},
doi = {10.1038/s41586-019-1486-7},
journal = {Nature (London)},
number = 7770,
volume = 572,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Aug 21 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Wed Aug 21 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
Giant Proximity Effect in Cuprate Superconductors
journal, October 2004
- Bozovic, I.; Logvenov, G.; Verhoeven, M. A. J.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 93, Issue 15
Spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry in copper oxide superconductors
journal, July 2017
- Wu, J.; Bollinger, A. T.; He, X.
- Nature, Vol. 547, Issue 7664
Charge of a quasiparticle in a superconductor
journal, February 2016
- Ronen, Yuval; Cohen, Yonatan; Kang, Jung-Hyun
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 7
Shot Noise and Multiple Andreev Reflections in -Wave Superconductors
journal, November 2002
- Cuevas, J. C.; Fogelström, M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 89, Issue 22
Striped superconductors: how spin, charge and superconducting orders intertwine in the cuprates
journal, November 2009
- Berg, Erez; Fradkin, Eduardo; Kivelson, Steven A.
- New Journal of Physics, Vol. 11, Issue 11
Observation of the Fractionally Charged Laughlin Quasiparticle
journal, September 1997
- Saminadayar, L.; Glattli, D. C.; Jin, Y.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 79, Issue 13
Atomic-layer synthesis and imaging uncover broken inversion symmetry in La Sr CuO films
journal, January 2013
- Yacoby, Yizhak; Zhou, Hua; Pindak, Ron
- Physical Review B, Vol. 87, Issue 1
Detection of a Cooper-pair density wave in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x
journal, April 2016
- Hamidian, M. H.; Edkins, S. D.; Joo, Sang Hyun
- Nature, Vol. 532, Issue 7599
From quantum matter to high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxides
journal, February 2015
- Keimer, B.; Kivelson, S. A.; Norman, M. R.
- Nature, Vol. 518, Issue 7538
Observation of Andreev Reflection Enhanced Shot Noise
journal, November 1997
- Dieleman, P.; Bukkems, H. G.; Klapwijk, T. M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 79, Issue 18
Spectroscopic Fingerprint of Phase-Incoherent Superconductivity in the Underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+
journal, August 2009
- Lee, J.; Fujita, K.; Schmidt, A. R.
- Science, Vol. 325, Issue 5944
Are “Pinholes” the Cause of Excess Current in Superconducting Tunnel Junctions? A Study of Andreev Current in Highly Resistive Junctions
journal, February 2011
- Greibe, Tine; Stenberg, Markku P. V.; Wilson, C. M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 9
Thermodynamic evidence for a nematic phase transition at the onset of the pseudogap in YBa2Cu3Oy
journal, July 2017
- Sato, Y.; Kasahara, S.; Murayama, H.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 11
Disentangling Cooper-pair formation above the transition temperature from the pseudogap state in the cuprates
journal, December 2010
- Kondo, Takeshi; Hamaya, Yoichiro; Palczewski, Ari D.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 7, Issue 1
High-Temperature Superconductivity in a Single Copper-Oxygen Plane
journal, October 2009
- Logvenov, G.; Gozar, A.; Bozovic, I.
- Science, Vol. 326, Issue 5953
High-temperature interface superconductivity between metallic and insulating copper oxides
journal, October 2008
- Gozar, A.; Logvenov, G.; Kourkoutis, L. Fitting
- Nature, Vol. 455, Issue 7214, p. 782-785
Forefront in the Elucidation of the Mechanism of High-Temperature Superconductivity
journal, January 2012
- Uchida, Shin-ichi
- Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 51, Issue 1R
Prepairing and the “filling” gap in the cuprates from the tomographic density of states
journal, February 2013
- Reber, T. J.; Plumb, N. C.; Cao, Y.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 87, Issue 6
Visualization of the emergence of the pseudogap state and the evolution to superconductivity in a lightly hole-doped Mott insulator
journal, May 2012
- Kohsaka, Y.; Hanaguri, T.; Azuma, M.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 8, Issue 7
Diamagnetism and Cooper pairing above in cuprates
journal, February 2010
- Li, Lu; Wang, Yayu; Komiya, Seiki
- Physical Review B, Vol. 81, Issue 5
Superconductor–insulator transition in La2 − xSr x CuO4 at the pair quantum resistance
journal, April 2011
- Bollinger, A. T.; Dubuis, G.; Yoon, J.
- Nature, Vol. 472, Issue 7344
Interlayer Tunneling and Gap Anisotropy in High-Temperature Superconductors
journal, July 1993
- Chakravarty, S.; Sudbo, A.; Anderson, P. W.
- Science, Vol. 261, Issue 5119
Charge trapping and super-Poissonian noise centres in a cuprate superconductor
journal, October 2018
- Bastiaans, K. M.; Cho, D.; Benschop, T.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 12
Dependence of the critical temperature in overdoped copper oxides on superfluid density
journal, August 2016
- Božović, I.; He, X.; Wu, J.
- Nature, Vol. 536, Issue 7616
Superconducting Transition at 38 K in Insulating-Overdoped Superlattices: Evidence for Interface Electronic Redistribution from Resonant Soft X-Ray Scattering
journal, March 2009
- Smadici, S.; Lee, J. C. T.; Wang, S.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 102, Issue 10
Improvement of chip design to reduce resonances in subgap regime of Josephson junctions
journal, March 2009
- Greibe, T.; Bauch, T.; Wilson, C.
- Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 150, Issue 5
Coherence and single-particle excitations in the high-temperature superconductors
journal, February 1999
- Deutscher, Guy
- Nature, Vol. 397, Issue 6718
Temporal correlations of superconductivity above the transition temperature in La2−xSrxCuO4 probed by terahertz spectroscopy
journal, February 2011
- Bilbro, L. S.; Aguilar, R. Valdés; Logvenov, G.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 7, Issue 4
Nernst effect in high- superconductors
journal, January 2006
- Wang, Yayu; Li, Lu; Ong, N. P.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 73, Issue 2
Atomic-layer engineering of superconducting oxides: yesterday, today, tomorrow
journal, March 2001
- Bozovic, I.
- IEEE Transactions on Appiled Superconductivity, Vol. 11, Issue 1
Fast and accurate shot noise measurements on atomic-size junctions in the MHz regime
journal, September 2017
- Tewari, Sumit; Sabater, Carlos; Kumar, Manohar
- Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 88, Issue 9
Doping a Mott insulator: Physics of high-temperature superconductivity
journal, January 2006
- Lee, Patrick A.; Nagaosa, Naoto; Wen, Xiao-Gang
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 78, Issue 1
Direct observation of a fractional charge
journal, September 1997
- de-Picciotto, R.; Reznikov, M.; Heiblum, M.
- Nature, Vol. 389, Issue 6647
Zero energy states at a normal-metal/cuprate-superconductor interface probed by shot noise
journal, June 2018
- Negri, O.; Zaberchik, M.; Drachuck, G.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 97, Issue 21
LDA energy bands, low-energy hamiltonians, t′, t″, t⊥ (k), and J⊥
journal, December 1995
- Andersen, O. K.; Liechtenstein, A. I.; Jepsen, O.
- Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, Vol. 56, Issue 12
Excitation Gap in the Normal State of Underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta
journal, July 1996
- Loeser, A. G.; Shen, Z. -X.; Dessau, D. S.
- Science, Vol. 273, Issue 5273
No mixing of superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in a high-temperature superconductor
journal, April 2003
- Bozovic, I.; Logvenov, G.; Verhoeven, M. A. J.
- Nature, Vol. 422, Issue 6934
Coherent Multiple Charge Transfer in a Superconducting NbN Tunnel Junction
journal, June 2005
- Uzawa, Y.; Wang, Z.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 1
Importance of phase fluctuations in superconductors with small superfluid density
journal, March 1995
- Emery, V. J.; Kivelson, S. A.
- Nature, Vol. 374, Issue 6521
Visualizing pair formation on the atomic scale in the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ
journal, May 2007
- Gomes, Kenjiro K.; Pasupathy, Abhay N.; Pushp, Aakash
- Nature, Vol. 447, Issue 7144
Spectroscopic evidence for a pseudogap in the normal state of underdoped high-Tc superconductors
journal, July 1996
- Ding, H.; Yokoya, T.; Campuzano, J. C.
- Nature, Vol. 382, Issue 6586
Multiple-Charge-Quanta Shot Noise in Superconducting Atomic Contacts
text, January 2001
- Cron, R.; Esteve, D.; Goffman, M. F.
- The American Physical Society
Forefront in the Elucidation of the Mechanism of High-Temperature Superconductivity
journal, December 2011
- Uchida, Shin-ichi
- Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 51, Issue 1
No Mixing of Superconductivity and Antiferromagnetism in a High-Temperature Superconductor.
journal, August 2003
- Bozovic, I.; Logvenov, G.; Verhoeven, M. A. J.
- ChemInform, Vol. 34, Issue 31
Visualizing pair formation on the atomic scale in the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
text, January 2007
- Gomes, Kenjiro K.; Pasupathy, Abhay N.; Pushp, Aakash
- arXiv
Are pinholes the cause of excess current in superconducting tunnel junctions? A study of Andreev current in highly resistive junctions
text, January 2010
- Greibe, Tine; Stenberg, Markku P. V.; Wilson, C. M.
- arXiv
Charge of a quasiparticle in a superconductor
text, January 2015
- Ronen, Yuval; Cohen, Yonatan; Kang, Jung-Hyun
- arXiv
Detection of a Cooper-Pair Density Wave in Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$
text, January 2015
- Hamidian, M. H.; Edkins, S. D.; Joo, Sang Hyun
- arXiv
Fast and accurate shot noise measurements on atomic-size junctions in the MHz regime
text, January 2017
- Tewari, Sumit; Sabater, Carlos; Kumar, Manohar
- arXiv
Zero Energy States at a Normal--Cuprate-Superconductor Interface Probed by Shot Noise
text, January 2017
- Negri, O.; Zaberchik, M.; Keren, A.
- arXiv
Shot noise and multiple Andreev reflections in d-wave superconductors
text, January 2002
- Cuevas, J. C.; Fogelstrom, M.
- arXiv
Direct Observation of a Fractional Charge
text, January 1997
- de-Picciotto, R.; Reznikov, M.; Heiblum, M.
- arXiv
Dependence of the critical temperature in overdoped copper oxides on superfluid density
journal, August 2016
- Božović, I.; He, X.; Wu, J.
- Nature, Vol. 536, Issue 7616
Charge trapping and super-Poissonian noise centres in a cuprate superconductor
journal, October 2018
- Bastiaans, K. M.; Cho, D.; Benschop, T.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 12
Improvement of chip design to reduce resonances in subgap regime of Josephson junctions
journal, March 2009
- Greibe, T.; Bauch, T.; Wilson, C.
- Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 150, Issue 5
Atomic-layer engineering of superconducting oxides: yesterday, today, tomorrow
journal, March 2001
- Bozovic, I.
- IEEE Transactions on Appiled Superconductivity, Vol. 11, Issue 1
High-Temperature Superconductivity in a Single Copper-Oxygen Plane
journal, October 2009
- Logvenov, G.; Gozar, A.; Bozovic, I.
- Science, Vol. 326, Issue 5953
Shot noise and multiple Andreev reflections in d-wave superconductors
text, January 2002
- Cuevas, J. C.; Fogelstrom, M.
- arXiv
Observation of the e/3 Fractionally Charged Laughlin Quasiparticles
text, January 1997
- Saminadayar, L.; Glattli, D. C.; Jin, Y.
- arXiv
Works referencing / citing this record:
The Quest for High(er) Tc in BaBiO3-Based Heterostructures
journal, November 2019
- Božović, Ivan; He, Xi; Bollinger, Anthony T.
- Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism, Vol. 33, Issue 1
Mean-field study of the Amperean pairing state
journal, January 2020
- Kopnický, Lukáš; Hlubina, Richard
- Physical Review B, Vol. 101, Issue 2
Translational-invariant bipolarons and superconductivity [Трансляционно-инвариантные биполяроны и сверхпроводимость]
journal, January 2020
- Lakhno, Victor Dmitrievich
- Keldysh Institute Preprints, Issue 9
Non-equilibrium charge and spin transport in superconducting–ferromagnetic–superconducting point contacts
journal, June 2018
- Holmqvist, C.; Belzig, W.; Fogelström, M.
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 376, Issue 2125
Spin-polarized Shapiro steps and spin-precession-assisted multiple Andreev reflection
journal, July 2014
- Holmqvist, C.; Fogelström, M.; Belzig, W.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 90, Issue 1
Translational-Invariant Bipolarons and Superconductivity
journal, April 2020
- Lakhno, Victor D.
- Condensed Matter, Vol. 5, Issue 2