Properties of the electronic fluid of superconducting cuprates from $^{63}$Cu NMR shift and relaxation

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) provides local, bulk information about the electronic properties of materials, and it has been influential for theory of high-temperature superconducting cuprates. Importantly, NMR found early that nuclear relaxation is much faster than what one expects from coupling to fermionic excitations above the critical temperature for superconductivity ($T_{\rm c}$), i.e. what one estimates from the Knight shift with the Korringa law. As a consequence, special electronic spin fluctuations have been invoked. Here, based on literature relaxation data it is shown that the electronic excitations, to which the nuclei couple with a material and doping dependent anisotropy, are rather ubiquitous and Fermi liquid-like. A suppressed NMR spin shift rather than an enhanced relaxation leads to the failure of the Korringa law for most materials. Shift and relaxation below $T_{\rm c}$ support the view of suppressed shifts, as well. A simple model of two coupled electronic spin components, one with $3d(x^2-y^2)$ orbital symmetry and the other with an isotropic $s$-like interaction can explain the data. The coupling between the two components is found to be negative, and it must be related to the pseudogap behavior of the cuprates. We can also explain the negative shift conundrum and the long-standing orbital shift discrepancy for NMR in the cuprates.