arXiv subjects

J. Levallois

Publications and source records attributed to J. Levallois.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

Pressure-induced structural transitions triggering dimensional crossover in lithium purple bronze Li0.9M6O17

At ambient pressure, lithium molybdenum purple bronze (Li0.9Mo6O17) is a quasi-one dimensional solid in which the anisotropic crystal structure and the linear dispersion of the underlying bands produced by electronic correlations possibly bring about a rare experimental realization of Tomomaga-Luttinger liquid physics. It is also the sole member of the broader purple molybdenum bronzes family where a Peierls instability has not been identified at low temperatures. The present study reports a pressure-induced series of phase transitions between 0 and 12 GPa. These transitions are strongly reflected in infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction. The most dramatic effect seen in optical conductivity is the metallization of the c-axis, concomitant to the decrease of conductivity along the b-axis. This indicates that high pressure drives the material away from its quasi-one dimensional behavior at ambient pressure. While the first pressure-induced structure of the series is resolved, the identification of the underlying mechanisms driving the dimensional change in the physics remains a challenge.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Fermi liquid behavior of the in-plane resistivity in the pseudogap state of YBa_2Cu_4O_8

Our knowledge of the ground state of underdoped hole-doped cuprates has evolved considerably over the last few years. There is now compelling evidence that inside the pseudogap phase, charge order breaks translational symmetry leading to a reconstructed Fermi surface made of small pockets. Quantum oscillations, [Doiron-Leyraud N, et al. (2007) Nature 447:564-568], optical conductivity [Mirzaei SI, et al. (2013) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:5774-5778] and the validity of Wiedemann-Franz law [Grissonnache G, et al. (2016) Phys. Rev. B 93:064513] point to a Fermi liquid regime at low temperature in the underdoped regime. However, the observation of a quadratic temperature dependence in the electrical resistivity at low temperatures, the hallmark of a Fermi liquid regime, is still missing. Here, we report magnetoresistance measurements in the magnetic-field-induced normal state of underdoped YBa_2Cu_4O_8 which are consistent with a T^2 resistivity extending down to 1.5 K. The magnitude of the T^2 coefficient, however, is much smaller than expected for a single pocket of the mass and size observed in quantum oscillations, implying that the reconstructed Fermi surface must consist of at least one additional pocket.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2016

Temperature-dependent ellipsometry measurements of partial Coulomb energy in superconducting cuprates

We performed an experimental study of the temperature and doping dependence of the energy-loss function of the bilayer and trilayer Bi-cuprate family. The primary aim is to obtain information on the energy stored in the Coulomb interaction between the conduction electrons, on the temperature dependence thereof, and on the change of Coulomb interaction when Cooper-pairs are formed. We performed temperature-dependent ellipsometry measurements on several Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8-x}$ single crystals: under-doped with $T_c=60, 70$ and 83K, optimally doped with $T_c=91$K, overdoped with $T_c=84, 81, 70$ and $58$K, as well as optimally doped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$Ca$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{10+x}$ with $T_c=110$K. Our first observation is that, as the temperature drops through $T_c$, the loss function in the range up to 2~eV displays a change of temperature dependence as compared to the temperature dependence in the normal state. This effect at - or close to - $T_c$ depends strongly on doping, with a sign-change for weak overdoping. The size of the observed change in Coulomb energy, using an extrapolation with reasonable assumptions about its $q$-dependence, is about the same size as the condensation energy that has been measured in these compounds. Our results therefore lend support to the notion that the Coulomb energy is an important factor for stabilizing the superconducting phase. Due to the restriction to small momentum, our observations do not exclude a possible significant contribution to the condensation energy of the Coulomb energy associated to the region of $q$ around $(π,π)$.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2013

Infrared and Raman spectroscopy measurements of a transition in the crystal structure and a closing of the energy gap of BiTeI under pressure

BiTeI is a giant Rashba spin splitting system, in which a non-centro symmetric topological phase has recently been suggested to appear under high pressure. We investigated the optical properties of this compound, reflectivity and transmission, under pressures up to $15$ GPa. The gap feature in the optical conductivity vanishes above $p \sim 9$ GPa and does not reappear up to at least $15$ GPa. The plasma edge, associated with intrinsically doped charge carriers, is smeared out through a phase transition at $9$ GPa. Using high pressure Raman spectroscopy, we follow the vibrational modes of BiTeI, providing additional clear evidence that the transition at 9 GPa involves a change of crystal structure. This change of crystal structure possibly inhibits the high-pressure topological phase from occurring.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Hybridization gap and anisotropic far-infrared optical conductivity of URu2Si2

We performed far-infrared optical spectroscopy measurements on the heavy fermion compound URu 2 Si 2 as a function of temperature. The light's electric-field was applied along the a-axis or the c-axis of the tetragonal structure. We show that in addition to a pronounced anisotropy, the optical conductivity exhibits for both axis a partial suppression of spectral weight around 12 meV and below 30 K. We attribute these observations to a change in the bandstructure below 30 K. However, since these changes have no noticeable impact on the entropy nor on the DC transport properties, we suggest that this is a crossover phenomenon rather than a thermodynamic phase transition.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Multi-component magneto-optical conductivity of multilayer graphene on SiC

Far-infrared diagonal and Hall conductivities of multilayer epitaxial graphene on the C-face of SiC were measured using magneto-optical absorption and Faraday rotation in magnetic fields up to 7 T and temperatures between 5 and 300 K. Multiple components are identified in the spectra, which include: (i) a quasi-classical cyclotron resonance (CR), originating from the highly doped graphene layer closest to SiC, (ii) transitions between low-index Landau levels (LLs), which stem from weakly doped layers and (iii) a broad optical absorption background. Electron and hole type LL transitions are optically distinguished and shown to coexist. An electron-hole asymmetry of the Fermi velocity of about 2% was found within one graphene layer, while the Fermi velocity varies by about 10% across the layers. The optical intensity of the LL transitions is several times smaller than what is theoretically expected for isolated graphene monolayers without electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Lifshitz critical point in the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy from high-field Hall effect measurements

The Hall coefficient R_H of the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy was measured in magnetic fields up to 60 T for a hole concentration p from 0.078 to 0.152, in the underdoped regime. In fields large enough to suppress superconductivity, R_H(T) is seen to go from positive at high temperature to negative at low temperature, for p > 0.08. This change of sign is attributed to the emergence of an electron pocket in the Fermi surface at low temperature. At p < 0.08, the normal-state R_H(T) remains positive at all temperatures, increasing monotonically as T \to 0. We attribute the change of behaviour across p = 0.08 to a Lifshitz transition, namely a change in Fermi-surface topology occurring at a critical concentration p_L = 0.08, where the electron pocket vanishes. The loss of the high-mobility electron pocket across p_L coincides with a ten-fold drop in the conductivity at low temperature, revealed in measurements of the electrical resistivity $ρ$ at high fields, showing that the so-called metal-insulator crossover of cuprates is in fact driven by a Lifshitz transition. It also coincides with a jump in the in-plane anisotropy of $ρ$, showing that without its electron pocket the Fermi surface must have strong two-fold in-plane anisotropy. These findings are consistent with a Fermi-surface reconstruction caused by a unidirectional spin-density wave or stripe order.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2010

Fermi-surface reconstruction and two-carrier model for the Hall effect in YBa2Cu4O8

Pulsed field measurements of the Hall resistivity and magnetoresistance of underdoped YBa2Cu4O8 are analyzed self-consistently using a simple model based on coexisting electron and hole carriers. The resultant mobilities and Hall numbers are found to vary markedly with temperature. The conductivity of the hole carriers drops by one order of magnitude below 30 K, explaining the absence of quantum oscillations from these particular pockets. Meanwhile the Hall coefficient of the electron carriers becomes strongly negative below 50 K. The overall quality of the fits not only provides strong evidence for Fermi-surface reconstruction in Y-based cuprates, it also strongly constrains the type of reconstruction that might be occurring.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

On the destruction of the hidden order in URu$_2$Si$_2$ by a strong magnetic field

We present a study of transport properties of the heavy fermion URu$_2$Si$_2$ in pulsed magnetic field. The large Nernst response of the hidden order state is found to be suppressed when the magnetic field exceeds 35 T. The combination of resistivity, Hall and Nernst data outlines the reconstruction of the Fermi surface in the temperature-field phase diagram. The zero-field ground state is a compensated heavy-electron semi-metal, which is destroyed by magnetic field through a cascade of field-induced transitions. Above 40 T, URu$_2$Si$_2$ appears to be a polarized heavy fermions metal with a large density of carriers whose effective mass rapidly decreases with increasing magnetic polarization.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2008

de Haas-van Alphen oscillations in the underdoped cuprate YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$

The de Haas-van Alphen effect was observed in the underdoped cuprate YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$ via a torque technique in pulsed magnetic fields up to 59 T. Above an irreversibility field of $\sim$30 T, the magnetization exhibits clear quantum oscillations with a single frequency of 540 T and a cyclotron mass of 1.76 times the free electron mass, in excellent agreement with previously observed Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. The oscillations obey the standard Lifshitz-Kosevich formula of Fermi-liquid theory. This thermodynamic observation of quantum oscillations confirms the existence of a well-defined, close and coherent, Fermi surface in the pseudogap phase of cuprates.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Skutterudite Results Shed Light on Heavy Fermion Physics

Only few selected examples among the great diversity of anomalous rare earth skutterudite are reviewed. Focus is first given on PrFe4P12 in comparison with URu2Si2. For PrFe4P12, great progress has been made on determining the nature of the order parameter (OP). A non magnetic order parameter with a multipolar component emerges here while for URu2Si2 the nature of the so-called hidden order remains mysterious. The two systems have several similarities in their temperature--pressure (T, P) and magnetic field--temperature (H, T) phase diagrams, in their spin dynamics, in their nesting character and in their high sensitivity to impurities. Advances on one side must stimulate new views on the other. Besides general considerations on the choice of the OP, a simple basic problem is the treatment of the Kondo coupling in a system with low charge carrier number for the cases of uncompensated and compensated semi-metal. An interesting problem is also the possible decoupling between exciton modes and itinerant carriers.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in YBa_2Cu_4O_8

We report the observation of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in the underdoped cuprate superconductor YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ (Y124). For field aligned along the c-axis, the frequency of the oscillations is $660\pm 30$ T, which corresponds to $\sim 2.4$ % of the total area of the first Brillouin zone. The effective mass of the quasiparticles on this orbit is measured to be $2.7\pm0.3$ times the free electron mass. Both the frequency and mass are comparable to those recently observed for ortho-II YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$ (Y123-II). We show that although small Fermi surface pockets may be expected from band structure calculations in Y123-II, no such pockets are predicted for Y124. Our results therefore imply that these small pockets are a generic feature of the copper oxide plane in underdoped cuprates.

cond-mat.supr-con↗