A coherent three-dimensional Fermi surface in a high-transition-temperature superconductor

Abstract

All conventional metals are known to possess a three-dimensional Fermi surface, which is the locus in reciprocal space of the long-lived electronic excitations that govern their electronic properties at low temperatures. These excitations should have well-defined momenta with components in all three dimensions. The high-transition-temperature (high-T(c)) copper oxide superconductors have unusual, highly two-dimensional properties above the superconducting transition. This, coupled with a lack of unambiguous evidence for a three-dimensional Fermi surface, has led to many new and exotic models for the underlying electronic ground state. Here we report the observation of polar angular magnetoresistance oscillations in the overdoped superconductor Tl2Ba2CuO6+delta in high magnetic fields, which firmly establishes the existence of a coherent three-dimensional Fermi surface. Analysis of the oscillations reveals that at certain symmetry points, however, this surface is strictly two-dimensional. This striking form of the Fermi surface topography, long-predicted by electronic band structure calculations, provides a natural explanation for a wide range of anisotropic properties both in the normal and superconducting states. Our data reveal that, despite their extreme electrical anisotropy, the high-T(c) materials at high doping levels can be understood within a framework of conventional three-dimensional metal physics.

Broken rotational symmetry on the Fermi surface of a high-Tc superconductor

“…In addition to the interlayer velocity, AMR is responsive to the inplane geometry of the Fermi surface. [30][31][32][33][34]42 For a cylindrical surface with simple cos k z warping and an isotropic Fermi radius k F (see Fig. 2b), the AMR evolves with field angle θ as ρ zz ðθÞ / 1=ðJ 0 ðk F c tan θÞÞ 2 , where c is the ĉ-axis lattice constant (see footnote for more complicated warping geometries the actual form of ρ zz (θ) is different, but it is still the product k F c that sets the angular scale over which the maxima in ρ zz appear).…”

“…The signatures of AMR are particularly strong for quasi-2D Fermi surfaces, and thus this technique is well suited for determining the Fermi surface geometry of the high-T c cuprates. [30][31][32][33][34] To map the Fermi surface geometry of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 6.58 we performed interlayer (ρ zz ) magnetoresistance measurements in a fixed magnetic field of 45 T even in the absence of interlayercoherence, AMR is still sensitive to the Fermi surface geometry (see ref. 35).…”

t′- and t″-dependence of the bulk-limit superconducting condensation energy of the 2D Hubbard model

“…However, there are some experimental results reporting the forms of the Fermi surface. In the case of Tl 2201, an AMRO work [17] gives such information which allows to get t'@-0.20 and t" @0.165. There is also an ARPES report [18], which provides similar values.…”

Persistence of High-Frequency Spin Fluctuations in Overdoped SuperconductingLa2−xSrxCuO4(x=Lipscombe1, Hayden2, Vignolle3 et al. 2007Phys. Rev. Lett.98221061View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…In contrast to the underdoped regime, superconductivity does not emerge from the ''pseudogap'' state [10]. Rather, it emerges from what appears to be a strongly correlated metallic state [11].In this Letter, we report an inelastic neutron scattering (INS) study of the magnetic response 00 q; ! of an overdoped superconducting sample over a wide energy range (0 -160 meV) and throughout the Brillouin zone.…”