Little-Parks like oscillations in lightly doped cuprate superconductors

TL;DR

This study reports low-field resistance oscillations in underdoped cuprate superconductors, suggesting a novel periodic superconducting structure that may shed light on the complex electronic orders in high-temperature superconductivity.

Contribution

It provides evidence for a new type of charge order in cuprates, characterized by resistance oscillations linked to a periodic superconducting structure, distinct from known charge density waves.

Findings

Resistance oscillations occur only when doping p<0.1

Oscillation amplitude increases as doping decreases

Oscillation period remains nearly constant across doping levels

Abstract

Understanding the rich and competing electronic orders in cuprate superconductors may provide important insight into the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity. Here, by measuring Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x in the extremely underdoped regime, we obtain evidence for a distinct type of ordering, which manifests itself as resistance oscillations at low magnetic fields (<10 T) and at temperatures around the superconducting transition. By tuning the doping level p continuously, we reveal that these low-field oscillations occur only when p<0.1. The oscillation amplitude increases with decreasing p but the oscillation period stays almost constant. We show that these low-field oscillations can be well described by assuming a periodic superconducting structure with a mesh size of about 50 nm. Such a charge order, which is distinctly different from the well-established charge density wave and pair density wave, seems to be an unexpected piece of the puzzle on the correlated physics in cuprates.