arXiv subjects

Pengcheng Dai

Publications and source records attributed to Pengcheng Dai.

At least 271 records · Page 15Linked to original sources

arXiv2008

Destruction of Neel order and appearance of superconductivity in electron-doped cuprates by oxygen annealing process

We use thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements to study the effect of oxygen annealing on the superconductivity and magnetism in Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_{4-δ}$. Although the transition temperature $T_c$ measured by susceptibility and superconducting coherence length increase smoothly with gradual oxygen removal from the annealing process, bulk superconductivity, marked by a specific heat anomaly at $T_c$ and the presence of a neutron magnetic resonance, only appears abruptly when $T_c$ is close to the largest value. These results suggest that the effect of oxygen annealing must be first determined in order to establish a Ce-doping dependence of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity phase diagram for electron-doped copper oxides.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

Structural and magnetic phase diagram of CeFeAsO1-xFx and its relationship to high-temperature superconductivity

We use neutron scattering to study the structural and magnetic phase transitions in the iron pnictides CeFeAsO1-xFx as the system is tuned from a semimetal to a high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductor through Fluorine (F) doping x. In the undoped state, CeFeAsO develops a structural lattice distortion followed by a stripe like commensurate antiferromagnetic order with decreasing temperature. With increasing Fluorine doping, the structural phase transition decreases gradually while the antiferromagnetic order is suppressed before the appearance of superconductivity, resulting an electronic phase diagram remarkably similar to that of the high-Tc copper oxides. Comparison of the structural evolution of CeFeAsO1-xFx with other Fe-based superconductors reveals that the effective electronic band width decreases systematically for materials with higher Tc. The results suggest that electron correlation effects are important for the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity in these Fe pnictides.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

A distinct bosonic mode in an electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor

Despite recent advances in understanding high-transition-temperature (high-T c) superconductors, there is no consensus on the origin of the superconducting 'glue': that is, the mediator that binds electrons into superconducting pairs. The main contenders are lattice vibrations (phonons) and spin-excitations with the additional possibility of pairing without mediators. In conventional superconductors, phonon-mediated pairing was unequivocally established by data from tunnelling experiments. Proponents of phonons as the high-T c glue were therefore encouraged by the recent scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments on hole-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8-delta (BSCCO) that reveal an oxygen lattice vibrational mode whose energy is anticorrelated with the superconducting gap energy scale. Here we report high-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy measurements of the electron-doped high-T c superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4 (PLCCO) (T c = 24 K) that reveal a bosonic excitation (mode) at energies of 10.5 plus/minus 2.5 meV. This energy is consistent with both spin-excitations in PLCCO measured by inelastic neutron scattering (resonance mode) and a low-energy acoustic phonon mode, but differs substantially from the oxygen vibrational mode identified in BSCCO. Our analysis of the variation of the local mode energy and intensity with the local gap energy scale indicates an electronic origin of the mode consistent with spin-excitations rather than phonons.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

MuSR studies of RE(O,F)FeAs (RE = La, Nd, Ce) and LaOFeP systems: possible incommensurate/stripe magnetism and superfluid density

Muon spin relaxation (MuSR) measurements in iron oxy-pnictide systems have revealed: (1) commensurate long-range order in undoped LaOFeAs; (2) Bessel function line shape in La(O0.97F0.03)FeAs which indicates possible incommensurate or stripe magnetism; (3) anomalous weak magnetism existing in superconducting LaOFeP, Ce(O0.84F0.16)FeAs, and Nd(O0.88F0.12)FeAs but absent in superconducting La(O0.92F0.08)FeAs; and (4) scaling of superfluid density and Tc in the Ce, La, and Nd-FeAs superconductors following a nearly linear relationship found in cuprates.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

Magnetic Order versus superconductivity in the Iron-based layered La(O1-xFx)FeAs systems

In high-transition temperature (high-Tc) copper oxides, it is generally believed that antiferromagnetism plays a fundamental role in the superconducting mechanism because superconductivity occurs when mobile electrons or holes are doped into the antiferromagnetic parent compounds. The recent discovery of superconductivity in the rare-earth (R) iron-based oxide systems [RO1-xFxFeAs] has generated enormous interest because these materials are the first noncopper oxide superconductors with Tc exceeding 50 K. The parent (nonsuperconducting) LaOFeAs material is metallic but shows anomalies near 150 K in both resistivity and dc magnetic susceptibility. While optical conductivity and theoretical calculations suggest that LaOFeAs exhibits a spin-density-wave (SDW) instability that is suppressed with doping electrons to form superconductivity, there has been no direct evidence of the SDW order. Here we use neutron scattering to demonstrate that LaOFeAs undergoes an abrupt structural distortion below ~150 K, changing the symmetry from tetragonal (space group P4/nmm) to monoclinic (space group P112/n) at low temperatures, and then followed with the development of long range SDW-type antiferromagnetic order at ~134 K with a small moment but simple magnetic structure. Doping the system with flourine suppresses both the magnetic order and structural distortion in favor of superconductivity. Therefore, much like high-Tc copper oxides, the superconducting regime in these Fe-based materials occurs in close proximity to a long-range ordered antiferromagnetic ground state. Since the discovery of long

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

Signature of Magnetic Phase Separation in the Ground State of Pr1-xCaxMnO3

Neutron scattering has been used to investigate the evolution of the long- and short-range charge-ordered (CO), ferromagnetic (FM), and antiferromagnetic (AF) correlations in single crystals of Pr1-xCaxMnO3. The existence and population of spin clusters as refected by short-range correlations are found to drastically depend on the doping (x) and temperature (T). Concentrated spin clusters coexist with long-range canted AF order in a wide temperature range in x = 0.3 while clusters do not appear in x = 0.4 crystal. In contrast, both CO and AF order parameters in the x = 0.35 crystal show a precipitous decrease below ~ 35 K where spin clusters form. These results provide direct evidence of magnetic phase separation and indicate that there is a critical doping x_c (close to x = 0.35) that divides the phase-separated site-centered from the homogeneous bond-centered or charge-disproportionated CO ground state.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2008

Inelastic neutron scattering studies of Crystal Field Levels in PrOs$_4$As$_{12}$

We use neutron scattering to study the Pr$^{3+}$ crystalline electric field (CEF) excitations in the filled skutterudite PrOs$_4$As$_{12}$. By comparing the observed levels and their strengths under neutron excitation with the theoretical spectrum and neutron excitation intensities, we identify the Pr$^{3+}$ CEF levels, and show that the ground state is a magnetic $Γ_4^{(2)}$ triplet, and the excited states $Γ_1$, $Γ_4^{(1)}$ and $Γ_{23}$ are at 0.4, 13 and 23 meV, respectively. A comparison of the observed CEF levels in PrOs$_4$As$_{12}$ with the heavy fermion superconductor PrOs$_4$Sb$_{12}$ reveals the microscopic origin of the differences in the ground states of these two filled skutterudites.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Quantum Spin Excitations through the metal-to-insulator crossover in $Y Ba_2 Cu_3 O_{6+y}$

We use inelastic neutron scattering to study the temperature dependence of the spin excitations of a detwinned superconducting YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.45}$ ($T_c=48$ K). In contrast to earlier work on YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$ ($T_c=58$ K), where the prominent features in the magnetic spectra consist of a sharp collective magnetic excitation termed ``resonance'' and a large ($\hbarω\approx 15$ meV) superconducting spin gap, we find that the spin excitations in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.45}$ are gapless and have a much broader resonance. Our detailed mapping of magnetic scattering along the $a^\ast$/$b^\ast$-axis directions at different energies reveals that spin excitations are unisotropic and consistent with the ``hourglass''-like dispersion along the $a^\ast$-axis direction near the resonance, but they are isotropic at lower energies. Since a fundamental change in the low-temperature normal state of YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+y}$ when superconductivity is suppressed takes place at $y\sim0.5$ with a metal-to-insulator crossover (MIC), where the ground state transforms from a metallic to an insulating-like phase, our results suggest a clear connection between the large change in spin excitations and the MIC. The resonance therefore is a fundamental feature of metallic ground state superconductors and a consequence of high-$T_c$ superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Magnons in Ferromagnetic Metallic Manganites

Ferromagnetic (FM) manganites, a group of likely half-metallic oxides, are of special interest not only because they are a testing ground of the classical doubleexchange interaction mechanism for the colossal magnetoresistance, but also because they exhibit an extraordinary arena of emergent phenomena. These emergent phenomena are related to the complexity associated with strong interplay between charge, spin, orbital, and lattice. In this review, we focus on the use of inelastic neutron scattering to study the spin dynamics, mainly the magnon excitations in this class of FM metallic materials. In particular, we discussed the unusual magnon softening and damping near the Brillouin zone boundary in relatively narrow band compounds with strong Jahn-Teller lattice distortion and charge/orbital correlations. The anomalous behaviors of magnons in these compounds indicate the likelihood of cooperative excitations involving spin, lattice, as well as orbital degrees of freedom.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Quantum spin correlations through the superconducting-normal phase transition in electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-d

The quantum spin fluctuations of the S = 1/2 Cu ions are important in determining the physical properties of the high-transition temperature (high-Tc) copper oxide superconductors, but their possible role in the electron pairing for superconductivity remains an open question. The principal feature of the spin fluctuations in optimally doped high-Tc superconductors is a well defined magnetic resonance whose energy (Er) tracks Tc (as the composition is varied) and whose intensity develops like an order parameter in the superconducting state. We show that the suppression of superconductivity and its associated condensation energy by a magnetic field in the electron-doped high-Tc superconductor, Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-d (Tc = 24 K), is accompanied by the complete suppression of the resonance and the concomitant emergence of static antiferromagnetic (AF) order. Our results demonstrate that the resonance is intimately related to the superconducting condensation energy, and thus suggest that it plays a role in the electron pairing and superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Incommensurate magnetic structure in the orthorhombic perovskite ErMnO_3

By combining dielectric, specific heat, and magnetization measurements and high-resolution neutron powder diffraction, we have investigated the thermodynamic and magnetic/structural properties of the metastable orthorhombic perovskite ErMnO_3 prepared by high-pressure synthesis. The system becomes antiferromagnetically correlated below 42 K and undergoes a lock-in transition at 28 K with propagation wave vector (0,k_b,0), which remains incommensurate at low temperature. The intercorrelation between the magnetic structure and electric properties and the role of the rare earth moment are discussed.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Effect of antiferromagnetic spin correlations on lattice distortion and charge ordering in Pr$_{0.5}$Ca$_{1.5}$MnO$_{4}$

We use neutron scattering to study the lattice and magnetic structure of the layered half-doped manganite Pr$_{0.5}$Ca$_{1.5}$MnO$_4$. On cooling from high temperature, the system first becomes charge- and orbital- ordered (CO/OO) near $T_{CO}=300$ K and then develops checkerboard-like antiferromagnetic (AF) order below $T_{N}=130$ K. At temperatures above $T_{N}$ but below $T_{CO}$ ($T_N<T<T_{CO}$), the appearance of short-range AF spin correlations suppresses the CO/OO induced orthorhombic strain, contrasting with other half-doped manganites, where AF order has no observable effect on the lattice distortion. These results suggest that a strong spin-lattice coupling and the competition between AF exchange and CO/OO ordering ultimately determines the low-temperature properties of the system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Magnetic fluctuations in n-type high-$T_c$ superconductors reveal breakdown of fermiology

By combining experimental measurements of the quasiparticle and dynamical magnetic properties of optimally electron-doped Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_4$ with theoretical calculations we demonstrate that the conventional fermiology approach cannot possibly account for the magnetic fluctuations in these materials. In particular, we perform tunneling experiments on the very same sample for which a dynamical magnetic resonance has been reported recently and use photoemission data by others on a similar sample to characterize the fermionic quasiparticle excitations in great detail. We subsequently use this information to calculate the magnetic response within the conventional fermiology framework as applied in a large body of work for the hole-doped superconductors to find a profound disagreement between the theoretical expectations and the measurements: this approach predicts a step-like feature rather than a sharp resonance peak, it underestimates the intensity of the resonance by an order of magnitude, it suggests an unreasonable temperature dependence of the resonance, and most severely, it predicts that most of the spectral weight resides in incommensurate wings which are a key feature of the hole-doped cuprates but have never been observed in the electron-doped counterparts. Our findings strongly suggest that the magnetic fluctuations reflect the quantum-mechanical competition between antiferromagnetic and superconducting orders.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Antiferromagnetism-superconductivity competition in electron-doped cuprates triggered by oxygen reduction

We have performed a systematic angle-resolved photoemission study of as-grown and oxygen-reduced Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$ and Pr$_{1-x}$LaCe$_{x}$CuO$_4$ electron-doped cuprates. In contrast to the common belief, neither the band filling nor the band parameters are significantly affected by the oxygen reduction process. Instead, we show that the main electronic role of the reduction process is to remove an anisotropic leading edge gap around the Fermi surface. While the nodal leading edge gap is induced by long-range antiferomagnetic order, the origin of the antinodal one remains unclear.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Resonance in Optimally Electron-Doped Superconductor Nd$_{1.85}$Ce$_{0.15}$CuO$_{4-δ}$

We use inelastic neutron scattering to probe magnetic excitations of an optimally electron-doped superconductor Nd$_{1.85}$Ce$_{0.15}$CuO$_{4-δ}$ above and below its superconducting transition temperature $T_c=25$ K. In addition to gradually opening a spin pseudo gap at the antiferromagnetic ordering wavevector ${\bf Q}=(1/2,1/2,0)$, the effect of superconductivity is to form a resonance centered also at ${\bf Q}=(1/2,1/2,0)$ but at energies above the spin pseudo gap. The intensity of the resonance develops like a superconducting order parameter, similar to those for hole-doped superconductors and electron-doped Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_4$. The resonance is therefore a general phenomenon of cuprate superconductors, and must be fundamental to the mechanism of high-$T_c$ superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Distinct Pairing Symmetries in $Nd_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_{4-y}$ and $La_{1.89}Sr_{0.11}CuO_{4}$ Single Crystals: Evidence from Comparative Tunnelling Measurements

We used point-contact tunnelling spectroscopy to study the superconducting pairing symmetry of electron-doped $Nd_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_{4-y}$ (NCCO) and hole-doped $La_{1.89}Sr_{0.11}CuO_{4}$ (LSCO). Nearly identical spectra without zero bias conductance peak (ZBCP) were obtained on the (110) and (100) oriented surfaces (the so-called nodal and anti-nodal directions) of NCCO. In contrast, LSCO showed a remarkable ZBCP in the nodal direction as expected from a d-wave superconductor. Detailed analysis reveals an s-wave component in the pairing symmetry of the NCCO sample with $Δ/k_BT_c=1.66$, a value remarkable close to that of a weakly coupled BCS superconductor. We argue that this s-wave component is formed at the Fermi surface pockets centered at ($\pmπ$,0) and (0,$\pmπ$) although a d-wave component may also exist.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2007

Spin waves throughout the Brillouin zone and magnetic exchange coupling in ferromagnetic metallic manganites La$_{1-x}$Ca$_{x}$MnO$_3$ ($x=0.25,0.30$)

Using time-of-flight and triple-axis inelastic neutron spectroscopy, we determine spin wave excitations throughout the Brillouin zone for ferromagnetic manganites La$_{1-x}$Ca$_x$MnO$_3$ ($x=0.25,0.3$) in their low temperature metallic states. While spin wave excitations in the long wavelength limit (spin stiffness $D$) have similar values for both compounds, the excitations near the Brillouin zone boundary of La$_{0.7}$Ca$_{0.3}$MnO$_3$ are considerable softened in all symmetry directions compared to that of La$_{0.75}$Ca$_{0.25}$MnO$_3$. A Heisenberg model with the nearest neighbor and the fourth neighbor exchange interactions can describe the overall dispersion curves fairly well. We compare the data with various theoretical models describing the spin excitations of ferromagnetic manganites.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2007

Microscopic annealing process and its impact on superconductivity in T'-structure electron-doped copper oxides

High-transition-temperature superconductivity arises in copper oxides when holes or electrons are doped into the CuO2 planes of their insulating parent compounds. While hole-doping quickly induces metallic behavior and superconductivity in many cuprates, electron-doping alone is insufficient in materials such as R2CuO4 (R is Nd, Pr, La, Ce, etc.), where it is necessary to anneal an as-grown sample in a low-oxygen environment to remove a tiny amount of oxygen in order to induce superconductivity. Here we show that the microscopic process of oxygen reduction repairs Cu deficiencies in the as-grown materials and creates oxygen vacancies in the stoichiometric CuO2 planes, effectively reducing disorder and providing itinerant carriers for superconductivity. The resolution of this long-standing materials issue suggests that the fundamental mechanism for superconductivity is the same for electron- and hole-doped copper oxides.

cond-mat.supr-con↗