Universal superconducting precursor in three classes of unconventional superconductors.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31227719.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-10635-w and PMC identifier 6588566.
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Abstract
A pivotal challenge posed by unconventional superconductors is to unravel how superconductivity emerges upon cooling from the generally complex normal state. Here, we use nonlinear magnetic response, a probe that is uniquely sensitive to the superconducting precursor, to uncover remarkable universal behaviour in three distinct classes of oxide superconductors: strontium titanate, strontium ruthenate, and the cuprate high-T<sub>c</sub> materials. We find unusual exponential temperature dependence of the diamagnetic response above the transition temperature T<sub>c</sub>, with a characteristic temperature scale that strongly varies with T<sub>c</sub>. We correlate this scale with the sensitivity of T<sub>c</sub> to local stress and show that it is influenced by intentionally-induced structural disorder. The universal behaviour is therefore caused by intrinsic, self-organized structural inhomogeneity, inherent to the oxides' perovskite-based structure. The prevalence of such inhomogeneity has far-reaching implications for the interpretation of electronic properties of perovskite-related oxides in general.