Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Competition between the pseudogap and superconductivity in the high-Tc copper oxides

Nature volume 457, pages 296–300 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

In a classical Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer superconductor, pairing and coherence of electrons are established simultaneously below the critical transition temperature (Tc), giving rise to a gap in the electronic energy spectrum. In the high-Tc copper oxide superconductors, however, a pseudogap1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 extends above Tc. The relationship between the pseudogap and superconductivity is one of the central issues in this field9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17. Spectral gaps arising from pairing precursors are qualitatively similar to those caused by competing electronic states, rendering a standard approach to their analysis inconclusive10,11,12,13,14,15,16. The issue can be settled, however, by studying the correlation between the weights associated with the pseudogap and superconductivity spectral features. Here we report a study of two spectral weights using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The weight of the superconducting coherent peak increases away from the node following the trend of the superconducting gap, but starts to decrease in the antinodal region. This striking non-monotonicity reveals the presence of a competing state. We demonstrate a direct correlation, for different values of momenta and doping, between the loss in the low-energy spectral weight arising from the opening of the pseudogap and a decrease in the spectral weight associated with superconductivity. We therefore conclude that the pseudogap competes with the superconductivity by depleting the spectral weight available for pairing.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Temperature dependence of the spectral weight in the superconducting and pseudogap states of overdoped Bi2201 ( T c = 29 K).
Figure 2: Momentum dependence of the coherent spectral weight in overdoped, optimally doped and underdoped Bi2201 samples.
Figure 3: Momentum dependence of the magnitudes of spectral gap and the coherent and pseudogap spectral weights in overdoped, optimally doped and underdoped Bi2201 samples.
Figure 4: The momentum and doping evolution of the coherent and pseudogap spectral weights and the effective region of the superconducting quasiparticles.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Emery, V. J. & Kivelson, S. A. Importance of phase fluctuations in superconductors with small superfluid density. Nature 374, 434–437 (1995)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Ding, H. et al. Spectroscopic evidence for a pseudogap in the normal state of underdoped high-T c superconductors. Nature 382, 51–54 (1996)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Loeser, A. G. et al. Excitation gap in the normal state of underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x . Science 273, 325–329 (1996)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Norman, M. R. et al. Destruction of the Fermi surface in underdoped high-T c superconductors. Nature 392, 157–160 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Timusk, T. & Statt, B. The pseudogap in high-temperature superconductors: an experimental survey. Rep. Prog. Phys. 62, 61–122 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Damascelli, A., Hussain, Z. & Shen, Z.-X. Angle-resolved photoemission studies of the cuprate superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 473–541 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Campuzano, J. C., Norman, M. R. & Randeria, M. in The Physics of Superconductors Vol. II (eds Bennemann, K. H. & Ketterson, J. B.) 167–273 (Springer, 2004)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. Anderson, P. W. et al. The physics behind high-temperature superconducting cuprates: The “plain vanilla” version of RVB. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 16, R755–R769 (2004)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Le Tacon, M. et al. Two energy scales and two distinct quasiparticle dynamics in the superconducting state of underdoped cuprates. Nature Phys. 2, 537–543 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Tanaka, K. et al. Distinct Fermi-momentum-dependent energy gaps in deeply underdoped Bi2212. Science 314, 1910–1913 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Lee, W. S. et al. Abrupt onset of a second energy gap at the superconducting transition of underdoped Bi2212. Nature 450, 81–84 (2007)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kondo, T., Takeuchi, T., Kaminski, A., Tsuda, S. & Shin, S. Evidence for two energy scales in the superconducting state of optimally doped (Bi,Pb)2(Sr,La)2CuO6+x . Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 267004 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Boyer, M. C. et al. Imaging the two gaps of the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CuO6+x . Nature Phys. 3, 802–806 (2007)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Khasanov, R. et al. Evidence for competition between the superconducting and the pseudogap state in (BiPb)2(SrLa)2CuO6+δ from muon-spin rotation experiments. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 227002 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Kanigel, A. et al. Evidence for pairing above Tc from the dispersion in the pseudogap phase of cuprates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 137002 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Johnson, P. D. et al. Emergence of preformed Cooper pairs from the doped Mott insulating state in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ . Nature 456, 77–80 (2008)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Norman, M. R., Pines, D. & Kallin, C. The pseudogap: friend or foe of high Tc? Adv. Phys. 54, 715–733 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Loeser, A. G. et al. Temperature and doping dependence of the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O electronic structure and fluctuation effects. Phys. Rev. B 56, 14185–14189 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Wei, J. et al. Superconducting coherence peak in the electronic excitations of a single layer cuprate superconductor Bi2Sr1. 6La0. 4CuO6+δ . Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 097005 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Feng, D. L. et al. Signature of superfluid density in the single-particle excitation spectrum of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x . Science 289, 277–281 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Ding, H. et al. Coherent quasiparticle weight and its connection to high-T c superconductivity from angle-resolved photoemission. Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 227001 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Russo, P. L. et al. Muon spin relaxation study of superconducting Bi2Sr2-xLaxCuO6+x . Phys. Rev. B 75, 054511 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. Shi, M. et al. The coherent d-wave superconducting gap in underdoped La2-xSrxCuO4 as studied by angle-resolved photoemission. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 047002 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Varma, C. M. Non-Fermi-liquid states and pairing instability of a general model of copper oxide metals. Phys. Rev. B 55, 14554–14580 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Schmalian, J., Pines, D. & Stojkovic, B. Weak pseudogap behavior in the underdoped cuprate superconductors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 3839–3842 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Emery, V. J., Kivelson, S. A. & Tranquada, J. M. Stripe phases in high-temperature superconductors. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 96, 8814–8817 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Chakravarty, S., Laughlin, R. B., Morr, D. K. & Nayak, C. Hidden order in the cuprates. Phys. Rev. B 63, 094503 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. Hanaguri, T. et al. A ‘checkerboard’ electronic crystal state in lightly hole-doped Ca2-x Na x CuO2Cl2 . Nature 430, 1001–1005 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Wise, W. D. et al. Charge-density-wave origin of cuprate checkerboard visualized by scanning tunnelling microscopy. Nature Phys. 4, 696–699 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Balents, L., Bartosch, L., Burkov, A., Sachdev, S. & Sengupta, K. Putting competing orders in their place near the Mott transition. II. The doped quantum dimer model. Phys. Rev. B 71, 144509 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank A. J. Millis, C. Varma and H. M. Fretwell for discussions. This work was supported by Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. The Ames Laboratory is operated for the US Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, by Iowa State University under contract no. DE-AC02-07CH11358.

Author Contributions T.K., R.K. and A.K. designed the experiment. T.K. and T.T. grew the high-quality single crystals. T.K. acquired the experimental data and T.K. and A.K. performed the data analysis. T.K., A.K. and J.S. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ames Laboratory and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA,

    Takeshi Kondo, Jörg Schmalian & Adam Kaminski

  2. Laboratory for Muon Spin Spectroscopy, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland

    Rustem Khasanov

  3. Department of Crystalline Materials Science,,

    Tsunehiro Takeuchi

  4. EcoTopia Science Institute, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan ,

    Tsunehiro Takeuchi

Authors
  1. Takeshi Kondo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rustem Khasanov
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tsunehiro Takeuchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jörg Schmalian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Adam Kaminski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Takeshi Kondo or Adam Kaminski.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Data, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Figures S1-S6 with Legends and Supplementary References (PDF 1180 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kondo, T., Khasanov, R., Takeuchi, T. et al. Competition between the pseudogap and superconductivity in the high-Tc copper oxides. Nature 457, 296–300 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07644

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07644

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing