TY - JOUR
T1 - Universal superconducting precursor in three classes of unconventional superconductors
AU - Pelc, D.
AU - Anderson, Z.
AU - Yu, B.
AU - Leighton, C.
AU - Greven, M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - A pivotal challenge posed by unconventional superconductors is to unravel how superconductivity emerges upon cooling from the generally complex normal state. Here, we use nonlinear magnetic response, a probe that is uniquely sensitive to the superconducting precursor, to uncover remarkable universal behaviour in three distinct classes of oxide superconductors: strontium titanate, strontium ruthenate, and the cuprate high-Tc materials. We find unusual exponential temperature dependence of the diamagnetic response above the transition temperature Tc, with a characteristic temperature scale that strongly varies with Tc. We correlate this scale with the sensitivity of Tc to local stress and show that it is influenced by intentionally-induced structural disorder. The universal behaviour is therefore caused by intrinsic, self-organized structural inhomogeneity, inherent to the oxides’ perovskite-based structure. The prevalence of such inhomogeneity has far-reaching implications for the interpretation of electronic properties of perovskite-related oxides in general.
AB - A pivotal challenge posed by unconventional superconductors is to unravel how superconductivity emerges upon cooling from the generally complex normal state. Here, we use nonlinear magnetic response, a probe that is uniquely sensitive to the superconducting precursor, to uncover remarkable universal behaviour in three distinct classes of oxide superconductors: strontium titanate, strontium ruthenate, and the cuprate high-Tc materials. We find unusual exponential temperature dependence of the diamagnetic response above the transition temperature Tc, with a characteristic temperature scale that strongly varies with Tc. We correlate this scale with the sensitivity of Tc to local stress and show that it is influenced by intentionally-induced structural disorder. The universal behaviour is therefore caused by intrinsic, self-organized structural inhomogeneity, inherent to the oxides’ perovskite-based structure. The prevalence of such inhomogeneity has far-reaching implications for the interpretation of electronic properties of perovskite-related oxides in general.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-10635-w
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-10635-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 31227719
AN - SCOPUS:85067605004
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 10
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 2729
ER -