Chemical signature of the superconducting phase in the nd-ce-cu-o system.
basic_science · Level V
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Abstract
The electron-doped material Nd2-xCexCuO(4) becomes superconducting with a Ce(4+) composition around 0.16, but only after removal of a minuscule amount of extraneous oxygen. This enigmatic behavior was addressed here. A small fraction of copper in the CuO(2) planes of Nd2-xCexCuO(4) was substituted by cobalt-57, which serves as a microprobe of the chemical environment. Deoxygenation brought about little change in the Mössbauer spectra both above and below the optimal superconducting concentration; however, for x = 0.16 a change was observed. In the latter, a major fraction of the magnetically split, five-coordinate species showed itself as a paramagnetically relaxed doublet upon deoxygenation. The abundance of the paramagnetically relaxed species corresponds closely to the diamagnetic volume fraction and thus provides a microscopic signature of the superconducting phase.