Letter abstract


Nature Physics 4, 762 - 765 (2008)
Published online: 20 July 2008 | doi:10.1038/nphys1026

Subject Categories: Condensed-matter physics | Materials physics

Strong correlations make high-temperature superconductors robust against disorder

Arti Garg1,2, Mohit Randeria3 & Nandini Trivedi3

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Strong correlations are central to the problem of high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates1, 2, 3, 4. Correlations are responsible for both the Mott insulating, antiferromagnetic state in the parent compounds and for the d-wave superconducting state that arises on doping with mobile charge carriers. An important experimental fact about the superconducting state is its insensitivity to disorder5, in marked contrast with conventional theories of d-wave pairing, which predict just the opposite. Here, we generalize the theory of the strongly correlated superconducting ground state based on projected wavefunctions6, 7, 8, 9 to include impurity effects and find the remarkable result that correlations play a central role in making the superconductor robust against disorder. The nodal quasiparticles, which are the low-energy electronic excitations, are protected against disorder leading to characteristic signatures in scanning tunnelling spectroscopy10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and angle-resolved photoemission15, 16, 17.

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  1. Physics Department, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa - 32000, Israel
  2. Department of Theoretical Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400005, India
  3. Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Physics Research Building, 191 W. Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

Correspondence to: Nandini Trivedi3 e-mail: trivedi.15@osu.edu



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