自旋三重态超导

超导体中的库珀对通常是由一对自旋相反总自旋为零(自旋单态)的电子组成.然而,在某些特殊情况下,超导体中的库珀对可以是自旋三重态,这类超导体被称之为自旋三重态超导体.自旋三重态超导是非常罕见的量子现象,在已经发现的上万种超导体中,仅有几个超导体可能具有三重态配对.近几年,随着拓扑物态研究的深入,三重态超导体因为可能是拓扑超导的载体而越来越多地引起关注.本文简要地总结了几类可能的自旋三重态超导体的物理性质.     

非常规超导体的核磁共振研究新进展

核磁共振作为一种重要的谱学研究手段,在非常规超导体的机理研究中发挥了极其重要的作用.近年来随着新型非常规超导材料的发现,对应的核磁共振研究也有了许多新的进展,这些工作对非常规超导电性的机理研究起到了积极的推动作用.本文将就核磁共振技术在奇宇称超导体、铜基高温超导体和笼目结构超导体这三类超导材料中的若干最新研究进展进行一个有针对性的概述和梳理.在奇宇称超导体研究方面,将重点介绍铬基超导家族A₂Cr₃As₃中铁磁量子临界点顺磁侧的超导相图的研究和自旋三重态超导的实验证据,非中心超导体YPtBi中反铁磁自旋涨落及非常规的自旋单态和自旋三重态混合的超导态的发现.在铜氧化物超导体和笼目结构超导体研究方面,将重点介绍YBa₂Cu₃O_y中强磁场诱导的电荷密度波序出现3倍晶胞(λ=3b)公度性的微观实验证据,笼目结构超导体CsV₃Sb₅中电荷密度波序和电子关联随压力的演化.希望本文对后续超导电性的机理研究、材料探索及实际应用能起...     

FeSe基超导体的拉曼散射研究

拉曼散射是现代凝聚态物理研究的基础实验手段之一,利用其技术上的特色,可以探测凝聚态物质的各类激发及其耦合.FeSe基超导体具有块材、单层、缺位相、插层结构等不同的结构形态、丰富的电子和磁相图、从几K到40 K以上的易调节超导转变温度,因此形成了研究超导性质的一个理想平台,近些年引发了超导领域很多研究者的研究兴趣.本文首先对FeSe基超导体的结构、磁性和电子结构进行介绍,着重阐述了拉曼散射测量在FeSe基超导体研究中取得的研究进展.在声子拉曼响应方面,主要介绍FeSe基超导体的结构与其超导电性之间的关系;在磁的拉曼响应方面,分别对FeSe基材料的双磁子、自旋声子耦合等研究结果进行讨论;在电子拉曼响应方面,主要针对FeSe基超导体中的向列相问题进行了相关分析;最后对单层FeSe超导体和相关的拉曼测量做简要介绍.     

超导材料的超快光谱研究

电子、晶格、自旋和轨道微观自由度对超导材料的宏观特性起到至关重要的作用.在超导体系中,特别是非常规超导材料,这些自由度衍生出具有不同能量尺度的玻色激发和有序态.前者如声子、磁振子、电荷密度波、自旋密度波、自旋涨落、向列涨落等;后者如超导态、赝能隙态、向列相、反铁磁/铁磁等.前者与后者的形成密切相关.尤其是,不同的玻色激发在频域内纠缠在一起彼此相互作用,同时又与电子(或准粒子)耦合,构建出复杂而又丰富的平衡态和非平衡态物理过程.超快光谱技术的独特性在于具有宽能量范围和高时间分辨率的特点,利用光(电磁波)与超导材料相互作用中的线性和非线性响应,可以共振或非共振地探测与调控这类材料中的准平衡或非平衡态动力学属性.因为桌面超快光谱系统功能全面且具有很大的灵活性,它不仅被应用于超导体系,而且被广泛应用于其他各种无机和有机材料.由于非平衡态理论,特别是与关联电子体系相关的,目前还处在快速发展的阶段,所以本综述主要介绍了常用的桌面超快光谱技术和目前被广泛使用的相关分析理论,聚焦于讨论超导材料中超快光谱实验数据涌现出来的一些普适性趋势及进展.所涉及的超导材料包含了常规超导体、铜氧化物超导体、铁基超导体和重费米子超导体.     

FeAs基超导体的超快光谱研究

铁基超导体作为第二个被发现的高温超导体家族,其超导机理无疑是现代物理学中最引人注目的物理问题之一.从凝聚态的角度上看,铁基超导体丰富的有序态主要源于微观自由度,如电荷、轨道、自旋和晶格之间的相互作用演绎而来.近年来,随着飞秒激光技术的飞速发展,超快光谱成为了直接探测材料宏观物理量的微观机制及各种微观自由度之间相互作用的有力工具之一,并广泛应用于铁基超导体研究.本文回顾了FeAs基超导体最近的超快光谱研究,其中包括对能隙函数的探讨、在时域内区分各种有序相及这些相与超导序之间的关系以及相干声子在超导配对中的作用等方面的进展.     

高温超导体中的自旋调制条纹相研究

在一定温度下的掺杂铜氧化合物高温超导体中,空穴间的强库仑关联作用和对关联的竞争使得在一定温度下条纹相与超导相共存。从一个二维格点模型出发,重点研究自旋调制对条纹相的影响,利用Fortran程序计算出不同的序参量下的条纹结果并用Matlab画出相应的图形,分析不同的序参量对条纹的影响,并试图探讨条纹相和超导相之间的微妙关系。     

SrFe_(2-x)Ru_xAs_2中Ru掺杂引起的自旋密度波压制

利用第一性原理计算研究了超导母体材料SrFe2As2中用Ru原子替代Fe原子引起的自旋密度波压制.尽管Ru和Fe有相同的价电子结构,但是因为Ru的4d能带比Fe的3d能带更扩展,所以这种替代仍然能很明显的改变体系的能带、费米面等电子结构信息.通过第一性原理计算,我们发现在0 x 2的掺杂区域,材料的磁性相图可以分为3个区域:(Ⅰ)条纹状反铁磁态(0.0 x 0.6);(Ⅱ)低自旋态(0.6 x 1.0);(Ⅲ)非磁性态(1.0 x2.0).我们的理论计算结果不仅和实验结果非常完美的符合,同时能很好的解释随着Ru原子替代Fe原子,样品的自旋密度波被压制,超导开始出现.     

镍氧化物超导体的发现与研究进展

镍氧化物超导材料的发现,激发起研究人员新一轮对近似铜氧化物新型超导材料的探寻以及对高温超导机理中有关晶体结构-电子结构密切关系的研究兴趣.本文重点从具有无限层结构的掺杂镍氧化物(Nd_0.8Sr_0.2NiO₂)超导体的发现、目前的实验研究进展、对其电子结构及物理机制的研究等方面概述这类新型超导材料的基本特性,并在结尾对镍基超导体系的构建、一些亟待解决的物理和材料问题以及今后研究的方向等作开放性讨论.     

亚稳态新型铁硒基超导体探索

插层铁硒基超导体作为铁基超导的重要组成部分,是近年来凝聚态物理领域的研究热点.它们不仅具有高的超导转变温度(T_c),而且有着迥异于其他铁基超导体的费米面电子结构,挑战了原有的超导电子配对机理.然而由于电负性平衡的要求,使用传统高温固相反应得到的晶体无法避免相分离的发生,其中含有大量Fe空位的非超导相,严重干扰对其本征物性的研究.为获得单相的插层铁硒基超导体,人们提出了液氨法,利用低温获得无Fe空位的插层铁硒基超导亚稳相.随后,溶剂热法和水热法等低温插层方法相继被提出.本文回顾了插层铁硒基超导体的设计理念和发展历程,综述了几种典型低温插层方法及其研究进展,同时提出了未来的研究方向.     

铜氧化物高温超导体电子结构和超导机理的角分辨光电子能谱研究

与单质金属或者合金为代表的常规超导体不同,以铜氧化合物高温超导体为代表的非常规超导体的超导机理超出了BCS理论的解释范畴,已经成为凝聚态物理领域的重大科学问题.角分辨光电子能谱技术以其独特的电子能量/动量分辨的优势,在铜氧化物高温超导体的能带结构、能隙行为、多体相互作用等相关物理和超导机理的研究方面发挥着重要作用.角分辨光电子能谱实验技术的提高和数据分析方法的发展,不仅丰富了铜氧化物超导体的电子相图,并且不断加深了人们对其内在物理本质的认知.本文总结了近年来角分辨光电子能谱技术的最新进展,并集中讨论了其在铜氧化物高温超导体研究中对能带结构演化、超导能隙行为和电子-声子相互作用等方面取得的最新研究进展,最后介绍了使用Eliashberg函数数值分析研究高温超导体超导机理的方法.     

Link between spin fluctuations and electron pairing in copper oxide superconductors

Although it is generally accepted that superconductivity is unconventional in the high-transition-temperature copper oxides, the relative importance of phenomena such as spin and charge (stripe) order, superconductivity fluctuations, proximity to a Mott insulator, a pseudogap phase and quantum criticality are still a matter of debate. In electron-doped copper oxides, the absence of an anomalous pseudogap phase in the underdoped region of the phase diagram and weaker electron correlations suggest that Mott physics and other unidentified competing orders are less relevant and that antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations are the dominant feature. Here we report a study of magnetotransport in thin films of the electron-doped copper oxide La(2?-?x)Ce(x)CuO(4). We show that a scattering rate that is linearly dependent on temperature--a key feature of the anomalous normal state properties of the copper oxides--is correlated with the electron pairing. We also show that an envelope of such scattering surrounds the superconducting phase, surviving to zero temperature when superconductivity is suppressed by magnetic fields. Comparison with similar behaviour found in organic superconductors strongly suggests that the linear dependence on temperature of the resistivity in the electron-doped copper oxides is caused by spin-fluctuation scattering.     

An hour-glass magnetic spectrum in an insulating, hole-doped antiferromagnet

Superconductivity in layered copper oxide compounds emerges when charge carriers are added to antiferromagnetically ordered CuO(2) layers. The carriers destroy the antiferromagnetic order, but strong spin fluctuations persist throughout the superconducting phase and are intimately linked to superconductivity. Neutron scattering measurements of spin fluctuations in hole-doped copper oxides have revealed an unusual 'hour-glass' feature in the momentum-resolved magnetic spectrum that is present in a wide range of superconducting and non-superconducting materials. There is no widely accepted explanation for this feature. One possibility is that it derives from a pattern of alternating spin and charge stripes, and this idea is supported by measurements on stripe-ordered La(1.875)Ba(0.125)CuO(4) (ref. 15). Many copper oxides without stripe order, however, also exhibit an hour-glass spectrum. Here we report the observation of an hour-glass magnetic spectrum in a hole-doped antiferromagnet from outside the family of superconducting copper oxides. Our system has stripe correlations and is an insulator, which means that its magnetic dynamics can conclusively be ascribed to stripes. The results provide compelling evidence that the hour-glass spectrum in the copper oxide superconductors arises from fluctuating stripes.     

Quantum magnetic excitations from stripes in copper oxide superconductors

In the copper oxide parent compounds of the high-transition-temperature superconductors the valence electrons are localized--one per copper site--by strong intra-atomic Coulomb repulsion. A symptom of this localization is antiferromagnetism, where the spins of localized electrons alternate between up and down. Superconductivity appears when mobile 'holes' are doped into this insulating state, and it coexists with antiferromagnetic fluctuations. In one approach to describing the coexistence, the holes are believed to self-organize into 'stripes' that alternate with antiferromagnetic (insulating) regions within copper oxide planes, which would necessitate an unconventional mechanism of superconductivity. There is an apparent problem with this picture, however: measurements of magnetic excitations in superconducting YBa2Cu3O6+x near optimum doping are incompatible with the naive expectations for a material with stripes. Here we report neutron scattering measurements on stripe-ordered La1.875Ba0.125CuO4. We show that the measured excitations are, surprisingly, quite similar to those in YBa2Cu3O6+x (refs 9, 10) (that is, the predicted spectrum of magnetic excitations is wrong). We find instead that the observed spectrum can be understood within a stripe model by taking account of quantum excitations. Our results support the concept that stripe correlations are essential to high-transition-temperature superconductivity.     

Hidden magnetism and quantum criticality in the heavy fermion superconductor CeRhIn5

With only a few exceptions that are well understood, conventional superconductivity does not coexist with long-range magnetic order (for example, ref. 1). Unconventional superconductivity, on the other hand, develops near a phase boundary separating magnetically ordered and magnetically disordered phases. A maximum in the superconducting transition temperature T(c) develops where this boundary extrapolates to zero Kelvin, suggesting that fluctuations associated with this magnetic quantum-critical point are essential for unconventional superconductivity. Invariably, though, unconventional superconductivity masks the magnetic phase boundary when T < T(c), preventing proof of a magnetic quantum-critical point. Here we report specific-heat measurements of the pressure-tuned unconventional superconductor CeRhIn5 in which we find a line of quantum-phase transitions induced inside the superconducting state by an applied magnetic field. This quantum-critical line separates a phase of coexisting antiferromagnetism and superconductivity from a purely unconventional superconducting phase, and terminates at a quantum tetracritical point where the magnetic field completely suppresses superconductivity. The T --> 0 K magnetic field-pressure phase diagram of CeRhIn5 is well described with a theoretical model developed to explain field-induced magnetism in the high-T(c) copper oxides, but in which a clear delineation of quantum-phase boundaries has not been possible. These experiments establish a common relationship among hidden magnetism, quantum criticality and unconventional superconductivity in copper oxides and heavy-electron systems such as CeRhIn5.     

自散焦晶体中阵列光束与写入晶格的相互作用研究

通过CCD观察了在自散焦光折变晶体中写入光子晶格的动态过程,发现了条纹分裂的一些新的实验现象,认为这是一种空间频率的倍频现象,这种现象是干涉条纹与写入光子晶格之间相互作用的结果,并用相位转移和相位分裂理论对实验现象做了初步解释．实验证明,利用局域光折变效应可以实现空间频率的倍频．     

Phase transitions in the incoherent lattice fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O(7-delta)

The growing body of experimental evidence for the existence of complex textures of charges and spins in the high-temperature superconductors has drawn attention to the so-called 'stripe-phase' models as a possible basis for the mechanism of superconductivity in these materials. Such observations have until now been restricted to systems where the texture dynamics are slow or suppressed altogether, and do not include the important case of YBa2Cu3O(7-delta). It seems likely that the dynamic behaviour of stripes, which has been suggested to undergo several phase transitions as a function of temperature, should also be reflected in the lattice properties of the host materials, and this forms the motivation for our present experiments. Specifically, we use MeV helium ion channelling, an ultrafast real-space probe of atomic displacements (with sub-picometre resolution), to probe incoherent lattice fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) as a function of temperature and oxygen doping. We detect lattice fluctuations that are larger than the expected thermal vibration component, and which show anomalies characteristic of the phase transitions anticipated for a dynamic stripe phase. Comparison of our lattice results with single-particle-tunnelling and photoemission data highlights the importance of spin-charge separation phenomena in the copper oxide superconductors.     

Bi—Ca—Sr—Cu—O体系中的高温超导电性

本文报道掺Pb和不掺Pb的Bi-Ca-Sr-Cu-O体系中高温超导电性的变化规律,讨论了体系组成、制备条件、物相与超导电性的关系。在合适的制备条件下,Bi-Pb-Ca-Sr-Cu-O体系中所形成的T_(ce)为103K的物相,除个别衍射峰外,几乎与纯铋系的4334相完全一致。     

Two-dimensional geometry of spin excitations in the high-transition-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6+x

The fundamental building block of the copper oxide superconductors is a Cu4O4 square plaquette. The plaquettes in most of these materials are slightly distorted to form a rectangular lattice, for which an influential theory predicts that high-transition-temperature (high-T(c)) superconductivity is nucleated in 'stripes' aligned along one of the axes. This theory received strong support from experiments that indicated a one-dimensional character for the magnetic excitations in the high-T(c) material YBa2Cu3O6.6 (ref. 4). Here we report neutron scattering data on 'untwinned' YBa2Cu3O6+x crystals, in which the orientation of the rectangular lattice is maintained throughout the entire volume. Contrary to the earlier claim, we demonstrate that the geometry of the magnetic fluctuations is two-dimensional. Rigid stripe arrays therefore appear to be ruled out over a wide range of doping levels in YBa2Cu3O6+x, but the data may be consistent with liquid-crystalline stripe order. The debate about stripes has therefore been reopened.     

An inverse transition of magnetic domain patterns in ultrathin films

Inverse freezing and inverse melting are processes where a more symmetric phase is found at lower temperatures than at higher temperatures. Such inverse transitions are very rare. Here we report the existence of an inverse transition effect in ultrathin Fe films that are magnetized perpendicular to the film plane. The magnetization of these films is not uniform, but instead manifests itself as stripe domains with opposite perpendicular magnetization. Predictions relating to the disordering of this striped ground state in the limit of monolayer film thicknesses are controversial. Mean-field arguments predict a continuous reduction of the stripe width when the temperature is increased; other studies suggest that topological defects, such as dislocations and disclinations, might penetrate the system and induce geometrical phase transitions. We find, from scanning electron microscopy imaging, that when the temperature is increased, the low-temperature stripe domain structure transforms into a more symmetric, labyrinthine structure. However, at even higher temperatures and before the loss of magnetic order, a re-occurrence of the less symmetric stripe phase is found. Despite the widespread theoretical and experimental work on striped systems, this phase sequence and the microscopic instabilities driving it have not been observed before.