Impurity induced resistivity upturns in underdoped cuprates

TL;DR

This paper explains the low temperature resistivity upturns in underdoped cuprates' pseudogap state by modeling impurity scattering within a phenomenological framework, aligning with experimental observations and emphasizing strong correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating impurity scattering in the Yang-Rice-Zhang framework to qualitatively reproduce resistivity upturns in cuprates.

Findings

Resistivity upturns are explained by impurity scattering effects.

The model reproduces doping evolution of resistivity upturns.

Strong electronic correlations play a crucial role in the phenomenon.

Abstract

Impurity induced low temperature upturns in both the ab-plane and the c-axis dc-resistivities of cuprates in the pseudogap state have been observed in experiments. We provide an explanation of this phenomenon by incorporating impurity scattering of the charge carriers within a phenomenological model by Yang-Rice-Zhang in this regime. The scattering between charge carriers and the impurity atom is considered within the lowest order Born approximation. Resistivity is calculated within Kubo formula using the impurity renormalized spectral functions. Using physical parameters for cuprates, we describe qualitative features of the upturn phenomena and its doping evolution that coincides with the experimental findings and we stress the role of strong electronic correlations.