Phase competition in trisected superconducting dome

TL;DR

This study uses ARPES to map spectral gaps in Bi-2212, revealing two quantum critical points and phase competition between pseudogap and superconductivity, leading to a revised phase diagram.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive doping and temperature-dependent ARPES analysis that uncovers two quantum critical points and clarifies the phase competition in cuprate superconductors.

Findings

Identification of two quantum critical points at p=0.19 and p=0.076.

Evidence that the pseudogap persists above T_c and at higher doping levels.

Revised phase diagram incorporating phase competition and critical points.

Abstract

A detailed phenomenology of low energy excitations is a crucial starting point for microscopic understanding of complex materials such as the cuprate high temperature superconductors. Because of its unique momentum-space discrimination, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is ideally suited for this task in the cuprates where emergent phases, particularly superconductivity and the pseudogap, have anisotropic gap structure in momentum space. We present a comprehensive doping-and-temperature dependence ARPES study of spectral gaps in Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$ (Bi-2212), covering much of the superconducting portion of the phase diagram. In the ground state, abrupt changes in near-nodal gap phenomenology give spectroscopic evidence for two potential quantum critical points, p$=$0.19 for the pseudogap phase and p$=$0.076 for another competing phase. Temperature dependence reveals that the pseudogap is not static below T$_c$ and exists p$>$0.19 at higher temperatures. Our data imply a revised phase diagram which reconciles conflicting reports about the endpoint of the pseudogap in the literature, incorporates phase competition between the superconducting gap and pseudogap, and highlights distinct physics at the edge of the superconducting dome.