Nanoscale Proximity Effect in the High Temperature Superconductor Bi-2212

Abstract

High temperature cuprate superconductors exhibit extremely local nanoscale phenomena and strong sensitivity to doping. While other experiments have looked at nanoscale interfaces between layers of different dopings, we focus on the interplay between naturally inhomogeneous nanoscale regions. Using scanning tunneling microscopy to carefully track the same region of the sample as a function of temperature, we show that regions with weak superconductivity can persist to elevated temperatures if bordered by regions of strong superconductivity. This suggests that it may be possible to increase the maximum possible transition temperature by controlling the distribution of dopants.

To appear in Physical Review Letters

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Cited by in corpus (21)

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• Emergence of nanoscale inhomogeneity in the superconducting state of a homogeneously disordered conventional superconductor, NbN
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• Puddle formation, persistent gaps, and non-mean-field breakdown of superconductivity in overdoped (Pb,Bi)2Sr2CuO6+δ
• Superconducting fluctuations in overdoped Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$
• Absence of a BCS-BEC crossover in the cuprate superconductors
• Microscopic Inhomogeneity and Superconducting Properties of a Two-dimensional Hubbard Model for High-$T_c$ Cuprate
• Enhancement of the critical temperature in cuprate superconductors by inhomogeneous doping
• Evidence for a two-fold symmetric superconducting gap in a monolayer of FeSe${}_{0.5}$Te${}_{0.5}$ on a topological insulator
• Quantitative characterization of the nanoscale local lattice strain induced by Sr dopants in La${}_{1.92}$Sr${}_{0.08}$CuO${}_4$
• Theory of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Tunnelling in Cuprate Superconductors
• Induced superconductivity in noncuprate layers of the Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ high-temperature superconductor: Modeling of scanning tunneling spectra
• Development of spatial inhomogeneity of internal magnetic field above $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$Ca${}_{1-x}$Y${}_x$Cu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ observed by longitudinal-field muon-spin-relaxation
• Inhomogeneity, Fluctuations, and Gap Filling in Overdoped Cuprates
• Spin-wave excitations in presence of nanoclusters of magnetic impurities
• Origin of the pseudogap and its influence on superconducting state
• Anomalous superconducting proximity effect of planar Pb-RhPb2 heterojunctions in the clean limit
• Taking a step back and looking at the superconducting dome from a distance
• Introduction to High-Temperature Superconductivity for Solid State Chemists
• The Low-Temperature Phenomenology of Gap Inhomogeneity in the Cuprate Superconductors: High-Energy Granularity, Low-Energy Homogeneity, and Spectral Kinks
• Emergence of Fermi-liquid and BCS physics in overdoped cuprates