High-temperature (Tc) superconductors, firstly discovered more than 30 years ago and with additional materials joining the family every a few years, have regained the attention of physicists due to emerging of intertwined quantum orders and new states of matter. One example is the long-sought metallic state formed by Cooper pairs with Bosonic statistics.
In this project, we seek to understand the underlying superconductivity mechanism in copper-oxide materials with alternating areas of electric charge and magnetism. We discovered an unusual metallic state when attempting to turn superconductivity off and found a transition from three-dimensional to two-dimensional superconductivity. The Cooper pairs are observed to survive in one-dimensional charge stripes when superconducting coherence is suppressed by high magnetic fields.
Useful references:
1. Li, Y. et al. Tuning from failed superconductor to failed insulator with magnetic field, Science Advance 5, aav7686 (2019)
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2. Li, Y. et al. Hole-pocket-driven superconductivity and its universal features in the electron-doped cuprates, Science Advance 5, aap7349 (2019)
3. Tsvelik, A. M. Superconductor-metal transition in odd-frequency–paired superconductor in a magnetic field, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, 12729 (2019)
4. Yang, C. et al. Intermediate bosonic metallic state in the superconductor-insulator transition, Science 366, 1505 (2019)
5. Liu, C. et al. Two-dimensional superconductivity and anisotropic transport at KTaO3 (111) interfaces, Science 371, 716 (2021)