TY - JOUR
T1 - Puddle formation and persistent gaps across the non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)2Sr2CuO6+δ
AU - Tromp, Willem O.
AU - Benschop, Tjerk
AU - Ge, Jian Feng
AU - Battisti, Irene
AU - Bastiaans, Koen M.
AU - Chatzopoulos, Damianos
AU - Vervloet, Amber H.M.
AU - Smit, Steef
AU - Yin, Yi
AU - More Authors, null
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The cuprate high-temperature superconductors exhibit many unexplained electronic phases, but the superconductivity at high doping is often believed to be governed by conventional mean-field Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory1. However, it was shown that the superfluid density vanishes when the transition temperature goes to zero2,3, in contradiction to expectations from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory. Our scanning tunnelling spectroscopy measurements in the overdoped regime of the (Pb,Bi)2Sr2CuO6+δ high-temperature superconductor show that this is due to the emergence of nanoscale superconducting puddles in a metallic matrix4,5. Our measurements further reveal that this puddling is driven by gap filling instead of gap closing. The important implication is that it is not a diminishing pairing interaction that causes the breakdown of superconductivity. Unexpectedly, the measured gap-to-filling correlation also reveals that pair breaking by disorder does not play a dominant role and that the mechanism of superconductivity in overdoped cuprate superconductors is qualitatively different from conventional mean-field theory.
AB - The cuprate high-temperature superconductors exhibit many unexplained electronic phases, but the superconductivity at high doping is often believed to be governed by conventional mean-field Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory1. However, it was shown that the superfluid density vanishes when the transition temperature goes to zero2,3, in contradiction to expectations from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory. Our scanning tunnelling spectroscopy measurements in the overdoped regime of the (Pb,Bi)2Sr2CuO6+δ high-temperature superconductor show that this is due to the emergence of nanoscale superconducting puddles in a metallic matrix4,5. Our measurements further reveal that this puddling is driven by gap filling instead of gap closing. The important implication is that it is not a diminishing pairing interaction that causes the breakdown of superconductivity. Unexpectedly, the measured gap-to-filling correlation also reveals that pair breaking by disorder does not play a dominant role and that the mechanism of superconductivity in overdoped cuprate superconductors is qualitatively different from conventional mean-field theory.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149360309&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41563-023-01497-1
DO - 10.1038/s41563-023-01497-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85149360309
SN - 1476-1122
VL - 22
SP - 703
EP - 709
JO - Nature Materials
JF - Nature Materials
IS - 6
ER -