Influence of structural disorder on low-temperature behavior of penetration depth in electron-doped high-T_C thin films

TL;DR

This study investigates how structural disorder affects the low-temperature magnetic penetration depth in electron-doped high-T_C superconducting thin films, revealing impurity scattering impacts and confirming d-wave pairing.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of PCCO and SCCO thin films, demonstrating the influence of disorder on superconducting properties and impurity scattering effects.

Findings

Impurity scattering rate correlates with sample quality.

Both samples exhibit d-wave pairing mechanism.

Disorder significantly modifies low-temperature behavior.

Abstract

To probe the influence of structural disorder on low-temperature behavior of magnetic penetration depth in electron-doped high-T_C superconductors, a comparative study of high-quality Pr_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_4 (PCCO) and Sm_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_4 (SCCO) thin films is presented. The obtained results confirm a d-wave pairing mechanism in both samples, substantially modified by impurity scattering (which is more noticeable in less homogeneous SCCO films) at the lowest temperatures. The value of the extracted impurity scattering rate correlates with the quality of our samples and is found to be much higher in less homogeneous films with lower T_C.