Evidence that cuprate superconductors form an array of nanoscopic Josephson junctions

Abstract

Recent measurements of charge instabilities in overdoped compounds rekindled the proposal that cuprates become superconductors by long-range order through Josephson coupling between nanoscopic charge domains. We use the theory of phase-ordering dynamics to show that incommensurate charge density waves (CDWs) are formed in the CuO planes by a series of free-energy wells separated by steep barriers. Charge oscillations in these domains give rise to a net hole-hole attraction proportional to the height of these barriers. Concomitantly, the self-consistent calculations yield localized superconducting amplitudes in the CDWdomains characterizing a granular superconductor. We show that a transition by long-range phase order promoted by Josephson coupling elucidates many well-known features of cuprates like the high magnetic penetration depth anisotropy and the origin of the pseudogap, among others. Furthermore, the average Josephson energy reproduces closely the planar superfluid density temperature dependence of La-based films and the superconducting giant proximity effects of cuprates, a 20-year-old open problem.

arXiv comment7 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Strongly-overdoped La${}_{2-x}$Sr${}_x$CuO${}_4$: Evidence for Josephson-coupled grains of strongly-correlated superconductor
• Unified model of the Hall effect from insulator to overdoped compounds in cuprate superconductors
• The role of the pseudogap in cuprate superconductors revealed by the Hall effect
• Generalization of interlayer tunneling models to cuprate superconductors with charge density waves