corner
corner

Phys. Rev. B 74, 144514 (2006) [11 pages]

Evolution of low-energy spin dynamics in the electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4−δ

Download: PDF (1,526 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Stephen D. Wilson1, Shiliang Li1, Pengcheng Dai1,2,*, Wei Bao3, Jae-Ho Chung4,5, H. J. Kang4,5, Seung-Hun Lee6, Seiki Komiya7, Yoichi Ando7, and Qimiao Si8
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-1200, USA
2Center for Neutron Scattering, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6393, USA
3Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
4NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-8562, USA
5Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-2115, USA
6Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4714, USA
7Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Komae, Tokyo 201-8511, Japan
8Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

Received 17 June 2006; published 23 October 2006

We use inelastic neutron scattering to explore the evolution of the low energy spin dynamics in the electron-doped cuprate Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4−δ (PLCCO) as the system is tuned from its nonsuperconducting, as-grown antiferromagnetic (AF) state into an optimally doped superconductor (Tc≈24 K) without static AF order. The low-temperature, low-energy response of the spin excitations in underdoped samples is coupled to the presence of the AF phase, whereas the low-energy magnetic response for samples near optimal Tc exhibits spin fluctuations surprisingly insensitive to the sample temperature. This evolution of the low-energy excitations is consistent with the influence of a quantum critical point in the phase diagram of PLCCO associated with the suppression of the static AF order. We carried out scaling analysis of the data and discuss the influence of quantum critical dynamics in the observed excitation spectrum.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.144514
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.74.144514
PACS:
74.72.Jt, 61.12.Ld, 75.25.+z

*Electronic address: daip@ornl.gov