Abstract
A fundamental question for high-temperature superconductors is the nature of the pseudogap phase, which lies between the Mott insulator at zero doping and the Fermi liquid at high doping p (refs 1, 2). Here we report on the behaviour of charge carriers near the zero-temperature onset of this phase, namely at the critical doping p*, where the pseudogap temperature T* goes to zero, accessed by investigating a material in which superconductivity can be fully suppressed by a steady magnetic field. Just below p*, the normal-state resistivity and Hall coefficient of La1.6−xNd0.4SrxCuO4 are found to rise simultaneously as the temperature drops below T*, suggesting a change in the Fermi surface with a large associated drop in conductivity. At p*, the resistivity shows a linear temperature dependence as the temperature approaches zero, a typical signature of a quantum critical point3. These findings impose new constraints on the mechanisms responsible for inelastic scattering and Fermi-surface transformation in theories of the pseudogap phase1,4,5,6,7,8.
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Acknowledgements
We thank K. Behnia, A. Chubukov, P. Coleman, Y.B. Kim, S.A. Kivelson, G. Kotliar, K. Haule, G.G. Lonzarich, A.J. Millis, M.R. Norman, C. Proust, T.M. Rice, S. Sachdev, T. Senthil, H. Takagi and A.-M.S. Tremblay for discussions, and J. Corbin for his assistance with the experiments. L.T. acknowledges support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and funding from NSERC, FQRNT, and a Canada Research Chair. L.B. was supported by NHMFL-UCGP and Y.J.J. by the NHMFL-Schuller fellow program. J.S.Z. and J.B.G. were supported by an NSF grant. The NHMFL is supported by an NSF grant and the State of Florida.
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Daou, R., Doiron-Leyraud, N., LeBoeuf, D. et al. Linear temperature dependence of resistivity and change in the Fermi surface at the pseudogap critical point of a high-Tc superconductor. Nature Phys 5, 31–34 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1109
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1109
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