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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Effects of disorder on high-temperature superconductors

Tai Kai Ng

Published May 1, 1992• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The effect of disorder on high-temperature superconductors is studied using a phenomenologically modified scaling theory for disordered interacting fermions. It is found that the effect of disorder on high-temperature superconductors is very different from the effect on a normal metal because of the ``marginal''-Fermi-liquid effect. In particular, we found that the system always scales toward strong disorder if the ``marginal'' effect is strong enough. Correspondingly, the magnetic susceptibility goes to zero.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.45.10830

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The effect of disorder on high-temperature superconductors is studied using a phenomenologically modified scaling theory for disordered interacting fermions. It is found that the effect of disorder on high-temperature superconductors is very different from the effect on a normal metal because of the marginal''-Fermi-liquid effect. In particular, we found that the system always scales toward strong disorder if the marginal'' effect is strong enough. Correspondingly, the magnetic susceptibility goes to zero.
Phase transitions and their critical scaling properties, especially in systems with disorder, are important both for our theoretical understanding of our environment, but also for their practical use in applications and materials in our everyday life. This thesis presents results from finite size scaling analysis of critical phenomena in systems with disorder, using high-precision Monte Carlo simulations and state of the art numerical methods. Specifically, theoretical models suitable for simulations in the presence of uncorrelated or correlated disorder are studied. Uncorrelated strong disorder, as present in the two dimensional gauge glass model to study the vortex glass phase of high temperature superconductors in an applied magnetic field is shown to lack a finite temperature phase transition. Further, results from dynamic quantities, such as resistance and autocorrelation functions, indicate the existence of two distinct diverging correlation times, one associated with local relaxation and one associated with vortex phase slips. Correlated disorder is studied both in the superfluid transition of helium-4 and in the anisotropic critical scaling of a transverse Meissner-like transition in an experimental setup of a high temperature superconductor. For the superfluid helium transition, it is shown that the presence of fractally correlated disorder presumably alters the universality class of the pure model. Also, a comparison with experimental data suggests that the critical scaling theory describing the heat capacity of helium-4 may need to be modified in the presence of the disorder. In the case of superconductors, analyzing experimental data from resistance measurements in a system with columnar defects together with an anisotropy in the applied magnetic field, reveals a fully anisotropic scaling regime. Finally, a data analysis is presented from simulations of a charged particle gas system in three dimensions, where the normal Coulomb interaction between charges is changed into a logarithmic interaction. Previous work indicates the possibility of a transition similar to the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in certain two dimensional systems. On the contrary, our simulations seem to favor a system whose critical scaling behavior is consistent with a transition occurring only at zero critical temperature. Overall, disorder in the model systems studied leads to important modifications of the critical scaling properties of pure systems, and thereby also to possible changes of the corresponding universality classes. This results in interesting predictions with experimentally relevant consequences.
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Proceeding from the simplest field theoretical model of 2D metal, the normal phase Green functions of the weakly interacting fermions and the order parameter fluctuations (responsible for the attraction between fermions) are obtained. It is shown that taking into consideration the fluctuations mentioned leads to a considerable reduction of the fermion wave function renormalization constant (quasiparticle weight) as well as to a linear dependence of the quasiparticle damping on the temperature. A general dependence of 2D Fermi liquid properties on the fermion density is discussed. The relevance of the proposed model to the marginal behavior of the Fermi liquid of high--TcT_cTc​ superconductors, in particular, to their linear temperature dependence of the resistivity is indicated.
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We study the superconducting instability of a two-dimensional disordered Fermi liquid weakly coupled to the soft fluctuations associated with proximity to an Ising-ferromagnetic quantum critical point. We derive interaction-induced corrections to the Usadel equation governing the superconducting gap function, and show that diffusion and localization effects drastically modify the interplay between fermionic incoherence and strong pairing interactions. In particular, we obtain the phase diagram, and demonstrate that (i) there is an intermediate range of disorder strength where superconductivity is enhanced, eventually followed by a tendency towards the superconductor-insulator transition at stronger disorder; and (ii) diffusive particle-particle modes (so-called ``Cooperons'') acquire anomalous dynamical scaling z=4z=4z=4, indicating strong non-Fermi liquid behavior.