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Title: Materials preparation, single-crystal growth, and the phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductor La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4

Abstract

One branch of the La-214 family of cuprate superconductors, La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4 (NdLSCO), has been of significant and sustained interest, in large part because it displays the full complexity of the phase diagram for canonical hole-doped, high TC superconductivity, while also displaying relatively low superconducting critical temperatures. The low superconducting TC’s imply that experimentally accessible magnetic fields can suppress the superconductivity to zero temperature. In particular, this has enabled various transport and thermodynamic studies of the T = 0 ground state in Nd-LSCO, free of superconductivity, across the critical doping p* = 0.23 where the pseudogap phase ends. The strong dependence of its superconducting properties on its crystal symmetry has itself motivated careful studies of the Nd-LSCO structural phase diagram. This paper provides a systematic study and summary of the materials preparation and characterization of both single crystal and polycrystalline samples of Nd-LSCO. Single-phase polycrystalline samples with x spanning the range from 0.01 to 0.40 have been synthesized, and large single crystals of La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4 for select x across the region (0.07, 0.12, 0.17, 0.19, 0.225, 0.24, and 0.26) were grown by the optical floating zone method. Furthermore, systematic neutron and X-ray diffraction studies on these samples were performed at both low andmore » room temperatures, 10 K and 300 K, respectively. These studies allowed us to follow the various structural phase transitions and propose an updated structural phase diagram for NdLSCO. In particular, we found that the low-temperature tetragonal (LTT) phase ends at a critical doping pLTT = 0.255±0.005, clearly separated from p*.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [2];  [6]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [7];  [8]
  1. McMaster Univ., Hamilton, ON (Canada); Brockhouse Inst. for Materials Research, Hamilton, ON (Canada); Jozef Stefan Inst., Ljubljana (Slovenia)
  2. McMaster Univ., Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  3. Brockhouse Inst. for Materials Research, Hamilton, ON (Canada); McMaster Univ., Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  4. Univ. de Sherbrooke, QC (Canada). Inst. Quantique
  5. Brockhouse Inst. for Materials Research, Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  6. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. Univ. de Sherbrooke, QC (Canada). Inst. Quantique; Canadian Inst. for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON (Canada)
  8. Brockhouse Inst. for Materials Research, Hamilton, ON (Canada); McMaster Univ., Hamilton, ON (Canada); Canadian Inst. for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON (Canada)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1787225
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review Materials
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 4; Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 2475-9953
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; magnetism; superconductivity; superconductors; chemical synthesis; crystal growth; neutron scattering

Citation Formats

Dragomir, Mirela, Ma, Qianli, Clancy, J. Patrick, Ataei, Amirreza, Dube, Paul A., Sharma, Sudarshan, Huq, Ashfia, Dabkowska, Hanna A., Taillefer, Louis, and Gaulin, Bruce D. Materials preparation, single-crystal growth, and the phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductor La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1103/physrevmaterials.4.114801.
Dragomir, Mirela, Ma, Qianli, Clancy, J. Patrick, Ataei, Amirreza, Dube, Paul A., Sharma, Sudarshan, Huq, Ashfia, Dabkowska, Hanna A., Taillefer, Louis, & Gaulin, Bruce D. Materials preparation, single-crystal growth, and the phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductor La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevmaterials.4.114801
Dragomir, Mirela, Ma, Qianli, Clancy, J. Patrick, Ataei, Amirreza, Dube, Paul A., Sharma, Sudarshan, Huq, Ashfia, Dabkowska, Hanna A., Taillefer, Louis, and Gaulin, Bruce D. Wed . "Materials preparation, single-crystal growth, and the phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductor La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevmaterials.4.114801. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1787225.
@article{osti_1787225,
title = {Materials preparation, single-crystal growth, and the phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductor La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4},
author = {Dragomir, Mirela and Ma, Qianli and Clancy, J. Patrick and Ataei, Amirreza and Dube, Paul A. and Sharma, Sudarshan and Huq, Ashfia and Dabkowska, Hanna A. and Taillefer, Louis and Gaulin, Bruce D.},
abstractNote = {One branch of the La-214 family of cuprate superconductors, La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4 (NdLSCO), has been of significant and sustained interest, in large part because it displays the full complexity of the phase diagram for canonical hole-doped, high TC superconductivity, while also displaying relatively low superconducting critical temperatures. The low superconducting TC’s imply that experimentally accessible magnetic fields can suppress the superconductivity to zero temperature. In particular, this has enabled various transport and thermodynamic studies of the T = 0 ground state in Nd-LSCO, free of superconductivity, across the critical doping p* = 0.23 where the pseudogap phase ends. The strong dependence of its superconducting properties on its crystal symmetry has itself motivated careful studies of the Nd-LSCO structural phase diagram. This paper provides a systematic study and summary of the materials preparation and characterization of both single crystal and polycrystalline samples of Nd-LSCO. Single-phase polycrystalline samples with x spanning the range from 0.01 to 0.40 have been synthesized, and large single crystals of La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4 for select x across the region (0.07, 0.12, 0.17, 0.19, 0.225, 0.24, and 0.26) were grown by the optical floating zone method. Furthermore, systematic neutron and X-ray diffraction studies on these samples were performed at both low and room temperatures, 10 K and 300 K, respectively. These studies allowed us to follow the various structural phase transitions and propose an updated structural phase diagram for NdLSCO. In particular, we found that the low-temperature tetragonal (LTT) phase ends at a critical doping pLTT = 0.255±0.005, clearly separated from p*.},
doi = {10.1103/physrevmaterials.4.114801},
journal = {Physical Review Materials},
number = 11,
volume = 4,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}

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