Tunneling conductance in layered oxide superconductors

The copper oxide superconductors are considered to have stacking structures of strongly and weakly super-conducting layers. Using this model, the tunneling conductance in a junction of the superconductor and a normal metal is calculated as a function of bias voltage. The calculation predicts that a characteristic fine structure appears inside the superconducting gap in the tuneling spectrum at low temperatures.     

Zero bias tunneling conductance for high field superconductors

The zero bias tunneling conductance is investigated theoretically and shown to be a promising experimental tool for detecting first order phase transitions in high field superconductors. We calculate and evaluate numerically the zero bias tunneling conductance for arbitrary spin orbital mean free path. In doing the calculations we distinguish between thin films in a parallel field and high?-value materials in a perpendicular field. In the former case anomalous properties appear for sufficient long spin orbital mean free path. Finally we determine the minimum spin orbital mean free path which is compatible with a first order phase transition and show that it is much smaller than commonly believed.     

Theory of tunneling conductance of STS around magnetic impurity in superconductors

Local density of states of quasiparticles around the magnetic impurity in superconductors are calculated on the basis of a pair potential the spatial dependence of which is determined self-consistently using negative Hubbard model. The spatial dependence of the tunneling conductance observed by Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) strongly depends on the magnitude of the impurity potentials.     

Resistivity,thermopower and single-particle tunneling studies on some zinc-doped yttrium barium copper oxide superconductors

Abstract

Resistance and thermopower measurements have been made on a series of compounds, YBa₂Cu₃- _x Zn _x O_7-y, with x = 0.025, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2. The superconducting transition temperature decreases as the zinc concentration increases. In a range of temperatures below T_M , the mid point of the transition, the resistance shows an exponential temperature dependence fitting the phenomenological formula proposed by Ausloos et al. From the plot of logarithm of resistivity vs. (T_M ? T) ^1/2/T, one deduces a value of the average dimension of the Josephson junction to be a few tens of Å, suggesting the microtwin boundaries to be the location of the junctions. The thermopower shows a peak always just above T_c . This conclusively shows that phonon drag is not the cause of the peak. The temperature dependence of the thermopower appears to resemble closely the earlier observations of Srinivasan et al. on yttrium barium copper oxide. Single-particle tunneling measurements carried out for two concentrations, x = 0 and 0.05, appear to indicate that the energy gap parameter scales with T_c , and 2Δ/kT_c has an approximate value of 5.5.     

Frustrated model to describe reentrant behavior in copper oxide superconductors

The quenched decorated Ising model with competitive interactions is used here to described the magnetic properties of the copper oxide superconductors compounds in the insulating phase (antiferromagnetic). The model consists of planes in which the nodal spins interact antiferromagnetically (J_A<0) with their nearest-neighbors, and ferromagnetically (J_F>0) with the spins that decorate the bonds, which are quenched and distributed randomly over the two-dimensional lattice. The planes interact antiferromagnetically with weak-exchange interaction (i.e., , λ=10^-5). By using the framework of an effective-field theory, based on the differential operator technique, we discuss the antiferromagnetic-phase stability limit in the temperature-decorated bond concentration space (T-p), for λ=10^-5 and various values of frustration parameter α=J_A/J_F. For certain region range of the parameter α we observe a reentrant behavior at low-temperature. We also discuss the critical behavior of T_N versus α for some values of decorated bond concentrations and reentrant phenomena is observed. We calculate the dependence of the staggered magnetization as a function of the temperature to analyze the reentrant behavior observed in the phase diagrams.     

Role of plasmons in high transition temperature copper oxide superconductors

We present a model calculation of the effective interaction between the charge carriers in YBa₂Cu₃O_7−δ and other related copper oxide superconductors. Our calculation shows that the plasmons (electronic excitations) play a dominant role in producing high superconducting transition temperatures in these materials.     

Effect of anisotropy in the Abrikosov phase of copper oxide superconductors

A flux liquid serves as a model for the Abrikosov phase of a type II superconductor with short coherence length and strong fluctuations. Here we discuss the effect of anisotropy due to the planes in the material and disorder due to impurities in terms of the density-density correlation function. We find that both effects change the qualitative behavior of the correlation lengths.     

NMR studies of the superconducting state of copper oxide superconductors

The authors review and up-date their work on Knight shifts, spin-lattice relaxation, and indirect nuclear spin-spin coupling for YBa₂Cu₃O₇ in the superconducting state. The data are analyzed in particular to show what it may indicate about the orbital and spin pairing of the superconducting state.     

Microscopic theory of longitudinal sound velocity in CDW and SDW ordered cuprate systems

We address here the self-consistent calculation of the spin density wave and the charge density wave gap parameters for high-T_c cuprates on the basis of the Hubbard model. In order to describe the experimental observations for the velocity of sound, we consider the phonon coupling to the conduction band in the harmonic approximation and then the expression for the temperature dependent velocity of sound is calculated from the real part of the phonon Green’s function. The effects of the electron–phonon coupling, the frequency of the sound wave, the hole doping concentration, the CDW coupling and the SDW coupling parameters on the sound velocity are investigated in the pure CDW phase as well as in the co-existence phase of the CDW and SDW states. The results are discussed to explain the experimental observations.     

Quantum tunneling of flux lines in superconductors

We discuss the different regimes which can be expected for quantum creep of flux lines by analysing the experimental results obtained for the relaxation rate as T→0 for Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O₇, Bi₂Sr₂Ca₁Cu₂O₈ and (ET)₂Cu(NCN)₂Br single crystals. We address the dimensionality of the pinned flux line, the possible bundle regime at high fields for the organic superconductor and the relative invariability of the quantum rate upon introduction of columnar defects.     

Pseudogap formation in copper oxide superconductors with inclusion of spin and charge fluctuations

The influence of spin and charge fluctuations on the pseudogap formation in cuprate superconductors has been studied using the diagram technique for Hubbard operators. It has been shown that the joint inclusion of the spin and charge fluctuations leads to the formation of “shadow” bands with a strong modulation of the spectral intensity and to a decrease in the density of electronic states at the Fermi level.     

Doping dependence of Meissner effect in cuprate superconductors

Within the t–t′–J model, the doping dependence of the Meissner effect in cuprate superconductors is studied based on the kinetic energy driven superconducting mechanism. Following the linear response theory, it is shown that the electromagnetic response consists of two parts, the diamagnetic current and the paramagnetic current, which exactly cancels the diamagnetic term in the normal state, and then the Meissner effect is obtained for all the temperature T ? T_c throughout the superconducting dome. By considering the two-dimensional geometry of cuprate superconductors within the specular reflection model, the main features of the doping and temperature dependence of the local magnetic field profile, the magnetic field penetration depth, and the superfluid density observed on cuprate superconductors are well reproduced. In particular, it is shown that in analogy to the domelike shape of the doping dependent superconducting transition temperature, the maximal superfluid density occurs around the critical doping δ ≈ 0.195, and then decreases in both lower doped and higher doped regimes.