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Vanishing of phase coherence in underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ

Nature volume 398, pages 221–223 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Although the binding of electrons into Cooper pairs is essential in forming the superconducting state, its remarkable properties—zero resistance and perfect diamagnetism—require phase coherence among the pairs as well. When coherence is lost at the transition temperature T c, pairing remains, together with phase correlations which are finite in space and time. In conventional metals, Cooper pairs with short-range phase coherence survive no more than 1 K above T c. In underdoped high-T c copper oxides, spectroscopic evidence for some form of pairing is found up to a temperature T *, which is roughly 100 K above T c (refs 1,2,3). How this pairing and Cooper-pair formation are related is a central problem in high-T c superconductivity. The nature of this relationship hinges on the extent to which phase correlations accompany pairing in the normal state4. Here we report measurements of high-frequency conductivity that track the phase-correlation timeτ in the normal state of the Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ family of underdoped copper oxide superconductors. Just above T c, we find that τ reflects the motion of thermally generated topological defects in the phase, or vortices5,6. However, vortex proliferation reduces τ to a value indistinguishable from the lifetime of normal-state electrons at 100 K, well below T *.

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Figure 1: The complex conductivity σ measured at 100 GHz, as a function of the temperature T.
Figure 2: The dynamic (frequency dependent) phase-stiffness temperature, T θ(ω) as a function of temperature T.
Figure 3: The conductivity phase angle, ϕ = tan−1(σ2/σ1), and dimensionless conductivity magnitude |σ|, plotted as a function of the reduced frequency ω/Ω(T).
Figure 4: The phase correlation time τ≡ Ω−1 and bare phase stiffness T θ0. found from the scaling analysis of conductivity data are plotted as a function of temperature.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NSF, DOE and ONR. J.O. thanks the Aspen Center for Physics for the opportunity to discuss this work with participants of its high-T c workshop.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    J. Corson, R. Mallozzi & J. Orenstein

  2. Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801, Illinois, USA

    J. N. Eckstein

  3. Oxxel GmbH, Fahrenheit Str. 9, Technologiepark Universität, D-28359, Bremen, Germany

    I. Bozovic

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  1. J. Corson
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Correspondence to J. Orenstein.

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Corson, J., Mallozzi, R., Orenstein, J. et al. Vanishing of phase coherence in underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Nature 398, 221–223 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18402

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