T. Hanaguri

An intrinsic bond-centered electronic glass with unidirectional domains in underdoped cuprates.

Removing electrons from the CuO2 plane of cuprates alters the electronic correlations sufficiently to produce high-temperature superconductivity. Associated with these changes are spectral-weight transfers from the high-energy states of the insulator to low energies. In theory, these should be detectable as an imbalance between the tunneling rate for electron injection and extraction—a tunneling asymmetry. We introduce atomic-resolution tunneling-asymmetry imaging, finding virtually identical phenomena in two lightly hole-doped cuprates: Ca1.88Na0.12CuO2Cl2 and Bi2Sr2Dy0.2Ca0.8Cu2O8+δ. Intense spatial variations in tunneling asymmetry occur primarily at the planar oxygen sites; their spatial arrangement forms a Cu-O-Cu bond-centered electronic pattern without long-range order but with 4a0-wide unidirectional electronic domains dispersed throughout (a0: the Cu-O-Cu distance). The emerging picture is then of a partial hole localization within an intrinsic electronic glass evolving, at higher hole densities, into complete delocalization and highest-temperature superconductivity.

Unconventional s-Wave Superconductivity in Fe(Se,Te)

Breaking Convention The defining characteristics of a superconductor are symmetry of gap function, which tells us something about how pairs of electrons move through the sample, and the strength of that pairing. Together, this information gives us the highest temperature to which the superconductor can remain superconducting. In conventional superconductors the gap function is symmetric, or s-wave, and tends to have low transition temperatures. The newly discovered iron-based superconductors also have s-wave symmetry, but the rather high transition temperatures, in addition to other properties, indicate that they are not conventional. Hanaguri et al. (p. 474; see the Perspective by Hoffman) use scanning tunneling microscopy to provide direct experimental confirmation of the unconventional s-wave pairing of the superconducting carriers in these materials. The electronic gap in an iron-based superconductor has spherically symmetric components that change sign. The superconducting state is characterized by a pairing of electrons with a superconducting gap on the Fermi surface. In iron-based superconductors, an unconventional pairing state has been argued for theoretically. We used scanning tunneling microscopy on Fe(Se,Te) single crystals to image the quasi-particle scattering interference patterns in the superconducting state. By applying a magnetic field to break the time-reversal symmetry, the relative sign of the superconducting gap can be determined from the magnetic-field dependence of quasi-particle scattering amplitudes. Our results indicate that the sign is reversed between the hole and the electron Fermi-surface pockets (s±-wave), favoring the unconventional pairing mechanism associated with spin fluctuations.

A ‘checkerboard’ electronic crystal state in lightly hole-doped Ca 2- x Na x CuO 2 Cl 2

The phase diagram of hole-doped copper oxides shows four different electronic phases existing at zero temperature. Familiar among these are the Mott insulator, high-transition-temperature superconductor and metallic phases. A fourth phase, of unknown identity, occurs at light doping along the zero-temperature bound of the ‘pseudogap’ regime. This regime is rich in peculiar electronic phenomena, prompting numerous proposals that it contains some form of hidden electronic order. Here we present low-temperature electronic structure imaging studies of a lightly hole-doped copper oxide: Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2. Tunnelling spectroscopy (at energies |E| > 100 meV) reveals electron extraction probabilities greatly exceeding those for injection, as anticipated for a doped Mott insulator. However, for |E| < 100 meV, the spectrum exhibits a V-shaped energy gap centred on E = 0. States within this gap undergo intense spatial modulations, with the spatial correlations of a four CuO2-unit-cell square ‘checkerboard’, independent of energy. Intricate atomic-scale electronic structure variations also exist within the checkerboard. These data are consistent with an unanticipated crystalline electronic state, possibly the hidden electronic order, existing in the zero-temperature pseudogap regime of Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2.

Momentum-resolved Landau-level spectroscopy of Dirac surface state in Bi 2 Se 3

We investigate Dirac fermions on the surface of the topological insulator

Field-induced superconducting phase of FeSe in the BCS-BEC cross-over.

{\text{Bi}}_{2}{\text{Se}}_{3}

High-field state of the flux-line lattice in the unconventional superconductor CeCoIn5

using scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Landau levels (LLs) are observed in the tunneling spectra in a magnetic field. In contrast to LLs of conventional electrons, a field-independent LL appears at the Dirac point, which is a hallmark of Dirac fermions. A scaling analysis of LLs based on the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition allowed us to determine the dispersion of the surface band. Near the Fermi energy, fine peaks mixed with LLs appear in the spectra, which may be responsible for the anomalous magnetofingerprint effect [J. G. Checkelsky et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 246601 (2009)].

Coherence Factors in a High-Tc Cuprate Probed by Quasi-Particle Scattering Off Vortices

Significance The BCS-BEC (Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer––Bose–Einstein-condensate) cross-over bridges the two important theories of bound particles in a unified picture with the ratio of the attractive interaction to the Fermi energy as a tuning parameter. A key issue is to understand the intermediate regime, where new states of matter may emerge. Here, we show that the Fermi energy of FeSe is extremely small, resulting in that this system can be regarded as an extraordinary “high-temperature” superconductor located at the verge of a BCS-BEC cross-over. Most importantly, we discover the emergence of an unexpected superconducting phase in strong magnetic fields, demonstrating that the Zeeman splitting comparable to the Fermi energy leads to a strong modification of the properties of fermionic systems in such a regime. Fermi systems in the cross-over regime between weakly coupled Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) and strongly coupled Bose–Einstein-condensate (BEC) limits are among the most fascinating objects to study the behavior of an assembly of strongly interacting particles. The physics of this cross-over has been of considerable interest both in the fields of condensed matter and ultracold atoms. One of the most challenging issues in this regime is the effect of large spin imbalance on a Fermi system under magnetic fields. Although several exotic physical properties have been predicted theoretically, the experimental realization of such an unusual superconducting state has not been achieved so far. Here we show that pure single crystals of superconducting FeSe offer the possibility to enter the previously unexplored realm where the three energies, Fermi energy εF, superconducting gap Δ, and Zeeman energy, become comparable. Through the superfluid response, transport, thermoelectric response, and spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunneling microscopy, we demonstrate that εF of FeSe is extremely small, with the ratio Δ/εF∼1(∼0.3) in the electron (hole) band. Moreover, thermal-conductivity measurements give evidence of a distinct phase line below the upper critical field, where the Zeeman energy becomes comparable to εF and Δ. The observation of this field-induced phase provides insights into previously poorly understood aspects of the highly spin-polarized Fermi liquid in the BCS-BEC cross-over regime.

Electronic state of vortices in YBa 2 Cu 3 O y investigated by complex surface impedance measurements

Ultrasound velocity measurements of the unconventional superconductor CeCoIn_5 with extremely large Pauli paramagnetic susceptibility reveal an unusual structural transformation of the flux line lattice (FLL) in the vicinity of the upper critical field. The transition field coincides with that at which heat capacity measurements reveal a second order phase transition. The lowering of the sound velocity at the transition is consistent with the collapse of the FLL tilt modulus and a crossover to quasi two-dimensional FLL pinning. These results provide a strong evidence that the high field state is the Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinikov phase, in which the order parameter is spatially modulated and has planar nodes aligned perpendicular to the vortices.

Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy of vortices in LiFeAs

When electrons pair in a superconductor, quasi-particles develop an acute sensitivity to different types of scattering potential that is described by the appearance of coherence factors in the scattering amplitudes. Although the effects of coherence factors are well established in isotropic superconductors, they are much harder to detect in their anisotropic counterparts, such as high-superconducting-transition-temperature cuprates. We demonstrate an approach that highlights the momentum-dependent coherence factors in Ca2–xNaxCuO2Cl2. We used Fourier-transform scanning tunneling spectroscopy to reveal a magnetic-field dependence in quasi-particle scattering interference patterns that is sensitive to the sign of the anisotropic gap. This result is associated with the d-wave coherence factors and quasi-particle scattering off vortices. Our technique thus provides insights into the nature of electron pairing as well as quasi-particle scattering processes in unconventional superconductors.

Imaging Nanoscale Electronic Inhomogeneity in the Lightly Doped Mott Insulator Ca~2~-~xNa~xCuO~2Cl~2

The electromagnetic response to microwaves in the mixed state of