Networks of superconducting nano-puddles in 1/8 doped YBa2Cu3O6.5+y controlled by thermal manipulation

Abstract

While it is known that the nature and the arrangement of defects in complex oxides have an impact on the material functionalities little is known on control of superconductivity by oxygen interstitial organization in cuprates. Here we report direct compelling evidence for the control of Tc, by manipulation of the superconducting granular networks of nanoscale puddles, made of ordered oxygen stripes, in a single crystal of YBa2Cu3O6.5+y with average formal hole doping p close to 1/8. Upon thermal treatments we were able to switch from a first network of oxygen defects striped puddles with OVIII modulation (qOVIII(a*)=(h+3/8,k,0) and qOVIII(a*)=(h+5/8,k,0)), to second network characterized by OXVI modulation (qOXVI(a*)=(h+7/16,k,0) and qOXVI(a*)=(h+9/16,k,0)), and finally to a third network with puddles of OV periodicity (qOV(a*)=(4/10,1,0) and qOV(a*)=(6/10,1,0)). We map the microscopic spatial evolution of the out of plane OVIII, OXVI and OV puddles nano-size distribution via scanning micro-diffraction measurements. In particular, we calculated the number of oxygen chains (n) and the charge density (holes concentration p) inside each puddle, analyzing areas of 160x80 μm2, and recording 12800 diffraction patterns to reconstruct each spatial map. The high spatial inhomogeneity shown by all the reconstructed spatial maps reflects the intrinsic granular structure that characterizes cuprates and iron-chalcogenides, disclosing the presence of several complex networks of coexisting superconducting domains with different lattice modulations, charge density and different gaps like in the proposed multi-gaps scenario called superstripes.

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References in corpus (10)

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Cited by in corpus (12)

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• CDW and similarity of the Mott-Insulator-to-Metal transition in cuprates with the gas to liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water
• Functional Nanoscale Phase Separation and Intertwined Order in Quantum Complex Materials
• X-rays writing/reading of Charge Density Waves in the CuO2 plane of a simple cuprate superconductor
• Multiple electronic components and Lifshitz transitions by oxygen wires formation in layered cuprates and nickelates
• Cuprate Twistronics for Quantum Hardware
• Scale free distribution of oxygen interstitials wires in optimum doped HgBa${}_2$CuO${}_{4+y}$
• Dislocations as a boundary between charge density wave and oxygen rich phases in a cuprate high temperature superconductor
• Manipulating electronic states at oxide interfaces using focused micro X-rays from standard lab-sources
• 2D nano-granularity of the oxygen chains in the YBa2Cu3O6.33 superconductor
• Gap fluctuations, Cooper pairs with finite center-of-mass momentum, and suppression of superconductivity in inhomogeneous systems with dopant superpuddles agglomerates