Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Feb 05;104(5):057005. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.057005. Epub 2010 Feb 05.

Nernst and Seebeck coefficients of the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.67: a study of Fermi surface reconstruction.

Physical review letters

J Chang, R Daou, Cyril Proust, David Leboeuf, Nicolas Doiron-Leyraud, Francis Laliberté, B Pingault, B J Ramshaw, Ruixing Liang, D A Bonn, W N Hardy, H Takagi, A B Antunes, I Sheikin, K Behnia, Louis Taillefer

PMID: 20366789 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.057005

Abstract

The Seebeck and Nernst coefficients S and nu of the cuprate superconductor YBa{2}Cu{3}O{y} (YBCO) were measured in a single crystal with doping p=0.12 in magnetic fields up to H=28 T. Down to T=9 K, nu becomes independent of field by H approximately 30 T, showing that superconducting fluctuations have become negligible. In this field-induced normal state, S/T and nu/T are both large and negative in the T-->0 limit, with the magnitude and sign of S/T consistent with the small electronlike Fermi surface pocket detected previously by quantum oscillations and the Hall effect. The change of sign in S(T) at T approximately 50 K is remarkably similar to that observed in La2-xBaxCuO4, La{2-x-y}Nd{y}Sr_{x}CuO{4}, and La{2-x-y}Eu{y}Sr{x}CuO{4}, where it is clearly associated with the onset of stripe order. We propose that a similar density-wave mechanism causes the Fermi surface reconstruction in YBCO.

Publication Types

• Journal Article