Fermi-surface transformation across the pseudogap critical point of the cuprate superconductor La_1.6-xNd_0.4Sr_xCuO₄

2016/07/31 by C. Collignon, S. Badoux, S. A. A. Afshar +8 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.supr-con #cond-mat.str-el

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.95.224517

published as Phys. Rev. B 95, 224517 (2017) · 11 pages, 12 figures

arxiv created 2017/07/05 · arxiv updated 2017/07/06

Abstract

The electrical resistivity ρ and Hall coefficient R_H of the tetragonal single-layer cuprate Nd-LSCO were measured in magnetic fields up to H = 37.5 T, large enough to access the normal state at T → 0, for closely spaced dopings p across the pseudogap critical point at p^⋆ = 0.235. Below p^⋆, both coefficients exhibit an upturn at low temperature, which gets more pronounced with decreasing p. Taken together, these upturns show that the normal-state carrier density n at T = 0 drops upon entering the pseudogap phase. Quantitatively, it goes from n = 1 + p at p = 0.24 to n = p at p = 0.20. By contrast, the mobility does not change appreciably, as revealed by the magneto-resistance. The transition has a width in doping and some internal structure, whereby R_H responds more slowly than ρ to the opening of the pseudogap. We attribute this difference to a Fermi surface that supports both hole-like and electron-like carriers in the interval 0.2 < p < p^⋆, with compensating contributions to R_H. Our data are in excellent agreement with recent high-field data on YBCO and LSCO. The quantitative consistency across three different cuprates shows that a drop in carrier density from 1 + p to p is a universal signature of the pseudogap transition at T=0. We discuss the implication of these findings for the nature of the pseudogap phase.

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