What Makes High Temperature Superconductivity Possible? Researchers Get Closer To A Unified Theory
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
In copper-containing materials called cuprates, superconductivity competes with two properties called magnetic spin and electric charge density wave (CDW) order. These properties reveal different parts of the electrons in the superconductor. Each electron possesses spin and charge.
In a regular metal, the spins cancel each other out and electrical charges are uniform across a material. However, the strong electron-electron interactions in high-temperature superconductors such as cuprates give rise to other possible states.
New research published in Nature Communications has examined materials where strong magnetic interaction causes some of the electron spins to order along stripes. This occurs when spin density waves (SDW) and CDWs lock together to form a stable long-range "stripe state" where the peaks and valleys of the two waves are aligned.
This state reinforces the stability of the SDW and CDW. This stripe state competes with and interrupts the superconducting phase. Now, however, researchers have found that short-range CDW can be compatible, rather than competitive, with superconductivity in cuprate materials. This finding runs counter to scientific conventional wisdom.
[...] The research also identified the possibility that short-range charge order may enable the formation and motion of vortices in the superconducting phase. This means researchers may be able to stabilize superconductivity at higher temperatures and magnetic fields by controlling or enhancing short-range charge order.
More information: J.-J. Wen et al, Enhanced charge density wave with mobile superconducting vortices in La1.885Sr0.115CuO4, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36203-x
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