arXiv subjects

D. G. Hinks

Publications and source records attributed to D. G. Hinks.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2014

Observation of a Zeeman Induced Lifshitz Transition in URu2Si2

High resolution longitudinal sound velocity measurements in a magnetic field performed at T tending to zero in URu2Si2 reveal a second signature at a field BLT in addition to the step change in velocity expected at the superconducting upper critical field, Bc2. Characteristic Fermi surface related magneto-acoustic quantum oscillations (MAQO) emerge beyond the field BLT at a frequency ~160 T for B||a-axis. Measurements performed with B oriented at various angles between the a and c-axes reveal an anisotropy for BLT nearly identical to that of BC2 suggesting similarity of the electron states involved in both the transitions. Given the observed frequency of ~160 T in the MAQO the transition is most likely related to the emergence of the \ηFermi surface in URu2Si2 (Lifshitz transition).

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arXiv2014

Metamagnetism and the Fifth Order Susceptibility in UPt3

An enhanced susceptibility is a natural consequence of the "heavy fermion" (HF) state rendering the possibility of measurably large nonlinear susceptibilities. In recent work a universal behavior of the peaks observed in the linear (\Chi_1) and the third order (\Chi_3) susceptibility in HF metamagnets has been identified. This universality is well accounted for by a single energy scale model considering on-site correlations only. A prediction of this model is a peak in the fifth order susceptibility, \Chi_5, as well. In the first measurements on a HF metamagnet, UPt3 reported herein, we find that Chi_5 rather than attaining a peak, saturates at low temperatures and is positive. The thermodynamic implications of these towards the stability of the metamagnetic HF state are discussed.

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arXiv2014

The Superconducting Phases of URu2Si2: Longitudinal Sound Velocity Measurements

High resolution longitudinal sound velocity measurements in a magnetic field performed in the temperature tending to zero limit reveal two distinct signatures attributable to multiple superconducting phases in URu2Si2. A step change in the sound velocity, for propagation in the basal plane, is observed at the critical field, Bc2. This step broadens considerably as T tends to Tc with a concomitant decrease in magnitude. A second step is observed at a field ~0.5 Bc2 and it's magnitude remains constant at all temperatures. Inductive measurements of the transitions in a magnetic field, however, exhibit a single signature which coincides with the lower step with no discernible in-phase signature at the upper transition. Measurements performed with B oriented at various angles between the a and c-axes reveal a weaker angular dependence of the lower step and confirm the rapid fall off of Bc2 close to B||c-axis. An off axis superconducting phase diagram is proposed.

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arXiv2014

Universality in the Magnetic Response of Metamagnetic Metals

We report in this paper, measurements of the nonlinear susceptibility χ_sub3(T) in the metamagnetic heavy fermion (HF) compound UPt3. At high temperatures, χ_sub3(T) < 0 and small. It turns positive for T less than 35K, forms a peak at T = 10K and then decreases to zero with further decreasing temperature. The peak in χ_sub3 occurs at a temperature T3 roughly half of T1, the temperature of the maximum in the linear susceptibility. We present results on URu2Si2 and UPd2Al3 to show that this feature is common to other HF materials. A two level model to describe the metamagnetic transition, with separation between the levels being the only energy scale, captures all experimentally observed features.

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arXiv2013

Universal features in the photoemission spectroscopy of high temperature superconductors

The energy gap for electronic excitations is one of the most important characteristics of the superconducting state, as it directly refects the pairing of electrons. In the copper-oxide high temperature superconductors (HTSCs), a strongly anisotropic energy gap, which vanishes along high symmetry directions, is a clear manifestation of the d-wave symmetry of the pairing. There is, however, a dramatic change in the form of the gap anisotropy with reduced carrier concentration (underdoping). Although the vanishing of the gap along the diagonal to the square Cu-O bond directions is robust, the doping dependence of the large gap along the Cu-O directions suggests that its origin might be different from pairing. It is thus tempting to associate the large gap with a second order parameter distinct from superconductivity. We use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to show that the two-gap behavior, and the destruction of well defined electronic excitations, are not universal features of HTSCs, and depend sensitively on how the underdoped materials are prepared. Depending on cation substitution, underdoped samples either show two-gap behavior or not. In contrast, many other characteristics of HTSCs, such as the domelike dependence of Tc on doping, long-lived excitations along the diagonals to the Cu-O bonds, energy gap at the antinode (crossing of the underlying Fermi surface and the (pi, 0)-(pi, pi) line) decreasing monotonically with doping, while persisting above Tc (the pseudogap), are present in all samples, irrespective of whether they exhibit two-gap behavior or not. Our results imply that universal aspects of high Tc superconductivity are relatively insensitive to differences in the electronic states along the Cu-O bond directions.

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arXiv2011

Low Field Magnetic Susceptibility and the Hidden Order Transition in URu2Si2

Despite several decades of both experimental and theoretical work the nature of the hidden order transition at THO = 17.5 K in URu2Si2 remains enigmatic. We report here low field DC magnetization as well as AC susceptibility measurements performed on single crystals with field along the c-axis. A peak in the first order AC susceptibility is observed at T=16 K in close proximity to the well known change in slope at THO=17.5 K. Third order susceptibility measurements on the other hand reveal a signature only at 16 K with no discernible change at THO. However, both transitions are visible in the fifth order susceptibility. A signature at this lower transition, as a spontaneous ferromagnetic signal, also appears in low field DC magnetization measurements. A similar but larger ferromagnetic response appears at T~35 K. Both these ferromagnetic signatures are suppressed in a small field (B ~ 40 Gauss ||c-axis). The close proximity of the lower signature to the hidden order transition and the simultaneous presence and suppression of a ferromagnetic signature at 35 K could be due to the removal of degeneracy in the complex order-parameter of the hidden order transition due a "symmetry breaking field", at least locally within the crystals of URu2Si2.

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arXiv2010

On the Reconstructed Fermi Surface in the Underdoped Cuprates

The Fermi surface topologies of underdoped samples the high-Tc superconductor Bi2212 have been measured with angle resolved photoemission. By examining thermally excited states above the Fermi level, we show that the Fermi surfaces in the pseudogap phase of underdoped samples are actually composed of fully enclosed hole pockets. The spectral weight of these pockets is vanishingly small at the anti-ferromagnetic zone boundary, which creates the illusion of Fermi "arcs" in standard photoemission measurements. The area of the pockets as measured in this study is consistent with the doping level, and hence carrier density, of the samples measured. Furthermore, the shape and area of the pockets is well reproduced by a phenomenological model of the pseudogap phase as a spin liquid.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2010

Rebuttal to "Comment by V.M. Krasnov on 'Counterintuitive consequence of heating in strongly-driven intrinsic junctions of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d Mesas' "

In our article [1], we found that with increasing dissipation there is a clear, systematic shift and sharpening of the conductance peak along with the disappearance of the higher-bias dip/hump features (DHF), for a stack of intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs) of intercalated Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi2212). Our work agrees with Zhu et al [2] on unintercalated, pristine Bi2212, as both studies show the same systematic changes with dissipation. The broader peaks found with reduced dissipation [1,2] are consistent with broad peaks in the density-of-states (DOS) found among scanning tunneling spectroscopy [3] (STS), mechanical contact tunneling [4] (MCT) and inferred from angle (momentum) resolved photoemission spectroscopy [5] (ARPES); results that could not be ignored. Thus, sharp peaks are extrinsic and cannot correspond to the superconducting DOS. We suggested that the commonality of the sharp peaks in our conductance data, which is demonstrably shown to be heating-dominated, and the peaks of previous intrinsic tunneling spectroscopy (ITS) data implies that these ITS reports might need reinterpretation.

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arXiv2010

Muon spin rotation study of the magnetic penetration depth in the intercalated graphite superconductor CaC6

We report temperature- and magnetic field-dependent bulk muon spin rotation measurements in a c-axis oriented superconductor CaC6 in the mixed state. Using both a simple second moment analysis and the more precise analytical Ginzburg-Landau model, we obtained a field independent in-plane magnetic penetration depth λab (0) = 72(3) nm. The temperature dependencies of the normalized muon spin relaxation rate and of the normalized superfluid density result to be identical, and both are well represented by the clean limit BCS model with 2Δ/kB Tc = 3.6(1), suggesting that CaC6 is a fully gapped BCS superconductor in the clean limit regime.

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arXiv2009

Counterintuitive Consequence of Heating in Strongly-Driven Intrinsic-Junctions of Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+δ}$ Mesas

Anomalously high and sharp peaks in the conductance of intrinsic Josephson junctions in Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+δ}$ (Bi2212) mesas have been universally interpreted as superconducting energy gaps, but here we show they are a result of heating. This interpretation follows from a direct comparison to the equilibrium gap, $\mathit Δ$, measured in break junctions on similar Bi2212 crystals. As the dissipated power increases with a greater number of junctions in the mesa, the conductance peak abruptly sharpens and its voltage decreases to well below 2$\mathit Δ$. This sharpening, found in our experimental data, defies conventional intuition of heating effects on tunneling spectra, but it can be understood as an instability into a nonequilibrium two-phase coexistent state. The measured peak positions occur accurately within the voltage range that an S-shaped backbending is found in the {\it calculated} current-voltage curves for spatially {\it uniform} self-heating and that S-shape implies the potential for the uniform state to be unstable.

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arXiv2009

Observation of a d-wave nodal liquid in highly underdoped Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+δ}

We use angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy to probe the electronic excitations of the non-superconducting state that exists between the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator at zero doping and the superconducting state at larger dopings in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+δ}. We find that this state is a nodal liquid whose excitation gap becomes zero only at points in momentum space. Despite exhibiting a resistivity characteristic of an insulator and the absence of coherent quasiparticle peaks, this material has the same gap structure as the d-wave superconductor. We observe a smooth evolution of the spectrum across the insulator-to-superconductor transition, which suggests that high temperature superconductivity emerges when quantum phase coherence is established in a non-superconducting nodal liquid.

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arXiv2009

Studies of superconductivity and structure for CaC6 to pressures above 15 GPa

The dependence of the superconducting transition temperature Tc of CaC6 has been determined as a function of hydrostatic pressure in both helium-loaded gas and diamond-anvil cells to 0.6 and 32 GPa, respectively. Following an initial increase at the rate +0.39(1) K/GPa, Tc drops abruptly from 15 K to 4 K at 10 GPa. Synchrotron x-ray measurements to 15 GPa point to a structural transition near 10 GPa from a rhombohedral to a higher symmetry phase.

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arXiv2007

Intrinsic Impurity in the High Temperature Superconductor Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O$_{8+δ}$

The {}^{17}O NMR spectra of Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O$_{8+δ}$ (Bi-2212) single crystals were measured in the temperature range from 4 K to 200 K and magnetic fields from 3 to 29 T, reported here principally at 8 T. The NMR linewidth of the oxygen in the CuO_{2} plane was found to be magnetically broadened with the temperature dependence of a Curie law where the Curie coefficient decreases with increased doping. This inhomogeneous magnetism is an impurity effect intrinsic to oxygen doping and persists unmodified into the superconducting state.

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arXiv2007

Evidence of Strong-Coupled Superconductivity in CaC6 from Tunneling Spectroscopy

Point-contact tunneling on CaC$_6$ crystals reproducibly reveals superconducting gaps, $Δ$, of 2.3$\pm$0.2 meV which are $\sim$~40% larger than earlier reports. That puts CaC$_6$ into the class of very strong-coupled superconductors since 2$Δ$/kT$_c\sim$~4.6. Thus soft Ca phonons will be primarily involved in the superconductivity, a conclusion that explains the large Ca isotope effect found recently for CaC$_6$. Consistency among superconductor-insulator-normal metal (SIN), SIS and Andreev reflection (SN) junctions reinforces the intrinsic nature of this result.

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arXiv2007

Investigation of the Tunneling Spectra in HgBr2-Intercalated Bi-2212 Single Crystals below and above Tc

Interlayer tunneling spectroscopy measurements were performed on mesa arrays of Bi-2212 single crystals, intercalated with HgBr$_2$. Tunneling conductances were obtained over a wide temperature range to examine the spectral features, especially the behavior of the quasiparticle peaks corresponding to superconducting energy gaps (SGs). Experimental spectra showed that gap-like features are still present even for the temperatures far above the transition temperature, T$_c$. This evidence is consistent with the idea that the SG evolves into a pseudogap above T$_c$ for HgBr$_2$-intercalated Bi-2212 single crystals.

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arXiv2007

Two-dimensional Vortices in Superconductors

Superconductors have two key characteristics. They expel magnetic field and they conduct electrical current with zero resistance. However, both properties are compromised in high magnetic fields which can penetrate the material and create a mixed state of quantized vortices. The vortices move in response to an electrical current dissipating energy which destroys the zero resistance state\cite{And64}. One of the central problems for applications of high temperature superconductivity is the stabilization of vortices to ensure zero electrical resistance. We find that vortices in the anisotropic superconductor Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+δ}$ (Bi-2212) have a phase transition from a liquid state, which is inherently unstable, to a two-dimensional vortex solid. We show that at high field the transition temperature is independent of magnetic field, as was predicted theoretically for the melting of an ideal two-dimensional vortex lattice\cite{Fis80,Gla91}. Our results indicate that the stable solid phase can be reached at any field as may be necessary for applications involving superconducting magnets\cite{Has04,Sca04,COHMAG}. The vortex solid is disordered, as suggested by previous studies at lower fields\cite{Lee93,Cub93}. But its evolution with increasing magnetic field displays unexpected threshold behavior that needs further investigation.

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arXiv2006

Large Ca Isotope Effect in CaC6

We have measured the Ca isotope effect in the newly discovered superconductor CaC6. The isotope effect coefficient is 0.50(7). If one assumes that this material is a conventional electron-phonon coupled superconductor, this result shows that the superconductivity is dominated by coupling of the electrons by Ca phonon modes and that C phonons contribute very little. Thus, in contrast to MgB2, where phonons in the B layers are responsible for the superconductivity, in CaC6 the phonons are primarily modes of the intercalated Ca.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2005

Negative thermal expansion of MgB$_{2}$ in the superconducting state and anomalous behavior of the bulk Grüneisen function

The thermal expansion coefficient $α$ of MgB$_2$ is revealed to change from positive to negative on cooling through the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$. The Grüneisen function also becomes negative at $T_c$ followed by a dramatic increase to large positive values at low temperature. The results suggest anomalous coupling between superconducting electrons and low-energy phonons.

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