Reversible magnetization and critical fluctuations in systematically doped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$ single crystals

TL;DR

This study investigates how reversible magnetization and critical fluctuations vary with doping in YBa₂Cu₃O₇−δ single crystals, revealing doping-dependent coherence lengths and validating the GL-LLL fluctuation theory.

Contribution

It provides systematic measurements of magnetization across doping levels and confirms the applicability of the GL-LLL scaling law in describing critical fluctuations in these superconductors.

Findings

Scaling law fits data above 2 T for all doping levels.

Doping dependence of the coherence length ξ was established.

Coherence length increases with underdoping.

Abstract

The temperature and field dependence of reversible magnetization have been measured on a YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$ single crystal at six different doping concentrations. It is found that the data above 2 T can be described by the scaling law based on the GL-LLL (lowest Landau level approach based on Ginzburg-Landau theory) critical fluctuation theory yielding the values of the slope of upper critical field $-\mathrm{d}H_{\mathrm{c2}}(T)/\mathrm{d}T$ near $T_\mathrm{c}$. This set of values is self-consistent with that obtained in doing the universal scaling for the six samples. Based on a simple Ginzburg-Landau approach, we determined the doping dependence of the coherence length $\xi$ which behaves in a similar way as that determined from $\xi= \hbar v_\mathrm{F}/E_\mathrm{sc}$ with $E_\mathrm{sc}$ the superconducting energy scale. Our results may suggest a growing coherence length towards more underdoping.