Cationic substitution and role of oxygen in the n-type superconducting T' system Nd2-yCeyCuOz

ARPES studies on new types of electron-doped cuprate superconductors

For more than thirty years since the discovery of superconductivity in cuprates, it has been widely agreed that the superconductivity is realized by doping a charge-transfer insulator with charge carriers through chemical substitution. For electron-doped cuprates, however, the recent development of reduction annealing methods has enabled superconductivity for a very small amount of or even without chemical substitution. In this article, we review recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy studies on the new types of electron-doped cuprates with particular emphasis on the effect of reduction annealing. The presented results provide us with renewed insight into the phase diagram and the nature of the pseudogap not only on the electron-doped side but also in the entire doping range including hole doping.

Emerging superconductivity hidden beneath charge-transfer insulators

In many of today's most interesting materials, strong interactions prevail upon the magnetic moments, the electrons, and the crystal lattice, forming strong links between these different aspects of the system. Particularly, in two-dimensional cuprates, where copper is either five- or six-fold coordinated, superconductivity is commonly induced by chemical doping which is deemed to be mandatory by destruction of long-range antiferromagnetic order of 3d⁹ Cu²⁺ moments. Here we show that superconductivity can be induced in Pr₂CuO₄, where copper is four-fold coordinated. We induced this novel quantum state of Pr₂CuO₄ by realizing pristine square-planar coordinated copper in the copper-oxygen planes, thus, resulting in critical superconducting temperatures even higher than by chemical doping. Our results demonstrate new degrees of freedom, i.e., coordination of copper, for the manipulation of magnetic and superconducting order parameters in quantum materials.

Remarkable transition from rocksalt/perovskite layered structure to fluorite/rocksalt layered structure in rapidly cooled Ln₂CuO₄

Lanthanide cuprates of formula Ln₂CuO₄ exist in two principal forms, T and T' which are renowned for their exhibition at low temperatures of hole and electronic types of superconductivity, respectively. These structures differ primarily in the arrangement of oxygen between the perovskite layers and also in nature of the copper oxygen planes. The Cu-O distance in the T structure (~1.90 Å) is much shorter than the T' (1.97Å), reflecting a transition between partial Cu⁺and partial Cu³⁺ character. In seeking to find compositions that bridge these two structure/electron carrier types, we observed the transition from a T structure to a T' type structure, resulting in the metastable form T″ with slightly larger volume but similar character to T'. This transition from T to T″ is associated with 5% increase in a and a 5% decrease in c parameters of the tetragonal unit cells, which results in disintegration of ceramic bodies.

Competition between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in the electron-doped cuprates triggered by oxygen reduction

We have performed a systematic angle-resolved photoemission study of as-grown and oxygen-reduced Pr(2-x)CexCuO4 and Pr(1-x)LaCexCuO4 electron-doped cuprates. In contrast with the common belief, neither the band filling nor the band parameters are significantly affected by the oxygen reduction process. Instead, we show that the main electronic role of the reduction process is to remove an anisotropic leading edge gap around the Fermi surface. While the nodal leading edge gap is induced by long-range antiferomagnetic order, the origin of the antinodal one remains unclear.