 | Yazdani Group at Princeton University |
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High Temperature Superconductors | ||||||||
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One of the areas of research in our group concerns one of the most hotly-debated problems in the physics of materials—the electronic states in the transition
metal oxides. These materials have a remarkable propensity to display novel characteristics. For example, they can become superconducting at unusually high
temperatures or display extreme sensitivity to magnetic fields. Despite more than a decade of work, the underlying physical mechanisms for many of the novel
effects found in the transition metal oxides remain mysterious. Many believe that a fundamentally new description of electronic states, different from those
used to describe most solids, is required to understand these compounds. The SPM techniques have much to offer in providing a nanoscale view of the complex
electronic states in these compounds. Over the last several years, our group has made several important contributions to the study of correlated electronic states in high-Tc copper-oxide superconductors by performing high-resolution STM measurements on these compounds. Through these experiments, we have performed the first atomic scale study of defect scattering in these compounds [1], the first direct imaging and spectroscopy measurements of a single copper-oxide plane [2], the first atomic scale study of a one-dimensional Andreev bound state [3], the first atomic scale study of the unusual pseudogap state above Tc and the discovery of electronic crystallization in this state [4]. Overall, our work has led to discovery of nanoscale signatures of d-wave superconductivity in these compounds and a demonstration of the electronic states in these systems to form real space patterns. More generally, these measurements together with those performed previously on conventional superconductors [1] have established STM as a powerful tool for studies of correlated electronic systems. Our current plans are to continue applying STM to unravel electronic correlations in cuprates and other transition metal oxides. This effort is done in collaboration with a number of groups around the world that have expertise in fabrication of high quality single crystal samples. Among our collaborators are Prof. Yoichi Ando of CREPI in Tokyo Japan and Prof. Bob Cava of Princeton. | |||||||||
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