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Enhancement of superconductivity by pressure-driven competition in electronic order

Nature volume 466, pages 950–953 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Finding ways to achieve higher values of the transition temperature, Tc, in superconductors remains a great challenge. The superconducting phase is often one of several competing types of electronic order, including antiferromagnetism and charge density waves1,2,3,4,5. An emerging trend documented in heavy-fermion1 and organic2 conductors is that the maximum Tc for superconductivity occurs under external conditions that cause the critical temperature for a competing order to go to zero. Recently, such competition has been found in multilayer copper oxide high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs3,4,5) that possess two crystallographically inequivalent CuO2 planes in the unit cell. However, whether the competing electronic state can be suppressed to enhance Tc in HTSCs remains an open question. Here we show that pressure-driven phase competition leads to an unusual two-step enhancement of Tc in optimally doped trilayer Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ (Bi2223). We find that Tc first increases with pressure and then decreases after passing through a maximum. Unexpectedly, Tc increases again when the pressure is further raised above a critical value of around 24 GPa, surpassing the first maximum. The presence of this critical pressure is a manifestation of the crossover from the competing order to superconductivity in the inner of the three CuO2 planes. We suggest that the increase at higher pressures occurs as a result of competition between pairing and phase ordering in different CuO2 planes.

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Figure 1: Magnetic susceptibility measurement set-up.
Figure 2: Magnetic susceptibility signals of Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca 2 Cu 3 O 10+ δ single crystals at various pressures.
Figure 3: Pressure dependence of Tc in optimally doped Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+ δ.
Figure 4: Raman spectra of a Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca 2 Cu 3 O 10+ δ single crystal at 33.6 GPa.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. R. Beasley, E. Berg, Y. Chen, C. W. Chu, R. E. Cohen, P. C. Dai, D.-L. Feng, E. Fradkin, T. Geballe, C. D. Gong, C.-Q. Jin, S. Kivelson, H.-Q. Lin, O. Millo, D. Orgad, S. Raghu, J. S. Schilling, Z.-X. Shen, L.-L. Sun, J. Tranquada, W.-F. Tsai, N.-L. Wang, H.-H. Wen, Z.-A. Xu, H. Yao, W.-G. Yin, Z.-X. Zhao and J.-X. Zhu for discussions. This work was supported by the DOE under grant no. DE-SC0001057, grant no. DE-FG02-02ER45955 and grant no. DEFC03-03NA00144, and by Carnegie Canada. X.-J.C. acknowledges financial support from the NSFC under grant no. 10874046.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 20015, Washington DC, USA

    Xiao-Jia Chen, Viktor V. Struzhkin, Yong Yu, Alexander F. Goncharov, Ho-kwang Mao & Russell J. Hemley

  2. Department of Physics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Xiao-Jia Chen

  3. Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, Stuttgart, D-70569, Germany

    Cheng-Tian Lin

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Contributions

X.-J.C., H.-k.M. and R.J.H. initiated the program and wrote the paper; X.-J.C., Y.Y. and V.V.S. performed the magnetic susceptibility measurements; X.-J.C., A.F.G. and V.V.S performed the Raman scattering measurements; C.-T.L. synthesized the single crystals; X.-J.C., V.V.S., A.F.G., R.J.H. and H.-k.M. analysed the data and discussed the results. All the authors read and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiao-Jia Chen, Ho-kwang Mao or Russell J. Hemley.

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Chen, XJ., Struzhkin, V., Yu, Y. et al. Enhancement of superconductivity by pressure-driven competition in electronic order. Nature 466, 950–953 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09293

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