Atomic-Scale Sources and Mechanism of Nanoscale Electronic Disorder in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta.
The randomness of dopant atom distributions in cuprate high-critical temperature superconductors has long been suspected to cause nanoscale electronic disorder. In the superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta, we identified populations of atomic-scale impurity states whose spatial densities follow closely those of the oxygen dopant atoms. We found that the impurity-state locations are strongly correlated with all manifestations of the nanoscale electronic disorder. This disorder occurs via an unanticipated mechanism exhibiting high-energy spectral weight shifts, with associated strong superconducting coherence peak suppression but very weak scattering of low-energy quasi-particles.
McElroy
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Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
Lee
Jinho
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Slezak
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Lee
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Eisaki
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Uchida
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Davis
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