Spin singlet and quasiparticles excitations in cuprate superconductors

TL;DR

This study uses electronic Raman scattering to investigate the evolution from an antiferromagnetic insulator to a superconductor in cuprates, revealing the interplay of pseudogap, spin excitations, and superconducting gap with doping.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the doping dependence of spin singlet, quasiparticle excitations, and their relation to the pseudogap and superconductivity in cuprates.

Findings

Pseudogap phase blocks charge carriers via enhanced AF correlations.

Pseudogap energy scale follows spin singlet excitation with doping.

Superconducting gap amplitude correlates with spin singlet excitation and T_c.

Abstract

We followed step by step the transition from an antiferromagnetic (AF) Mott insulator to a superconducting (SC) metal in the Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+\delta}$ (Bi-2212) cuprate using the electronic Raman scattering spectroscopy. This was achieved by tracking the doping dependence of the spin singlet excitation originate from the AF Mott insulator, the normal state quasiparticles excitation related to the mobile charge carriers and the Bogoliubov quasiparticles related to the SC gap. We show that the signature of the pseudogap phase which develops during this transition, can be interpreted as the blocking of charge carriers by the enhancement of the antiferromagnetic correlations as the temperature drops. We find that the energy scale of the pseudogap, $\Delta_{\textrm{pg}}(p)$, closely follows the one of the spin singlet excitation, $\Delta_{\textrm{sse}}(p)$, with doping $p$. The quasiparticles lifetime considerably increases with doping when the pseudogap collapses. We reveal that the maximum amplitude of the SC gap, $\Delta_{\textrm{sc}}^{\textrm{max}}$ and the SC transition temperature \Tc are linked in an extended range of doping such as $\Delta_{\textrm{sc}}^{\textrm{max}}(p) \propto \Delta_{\textrm{sse}}(p)\, T_c(p)$. This relation suggests that the AF correlations play a key role in the mechanism of superconductivity.