The superconductor iron selenide (FeSe) is of intense interest owing to its unusual nonmagnetic nematic state and potential for high-temperature superconductivity. But its Cooper pairing mechanism ...has not been determined. We used Bogoliubov quasiparticle interference imaging to determine the Fermi surface geometry of the electronic bands surrounding the G = (0, 0) and X = (p/aFe, 0) points of FeSe and to measure the corresponding superconducting energy gaps. We show that both gaps are extremely anisotropic but nodeless and that they exhibit gap maxima oriented orthogonally in momentum space. Moreover, by implementing a novel technique, we demonstrate that these gaps have opposite sign with respect to each other. This complex gap configuration reveals the existence of orbital-selective Cooper pairing that, in FeSe, is based preferentially on electrons from the dyz orbitals of the iron atoms.
High magnetic fields suppress cuprate superconductivity to reveal an unusual density wave (DW) state coexisting with unexplained quantum oscillations. Although routinely labeled a charge density wave ...(CDW), this DW state could actually be an electron-pair density wave (PDW). To search for evidence of a field-induced PDW, we visualized modulations in the density of electronic states
(
) within the halo surrounding Bi
Sr
CaCu
O
vortex cores. We detected numerous phenomena predicted for a field-induced PDW, including two sets of particle-hole symmetric
(
) modulations with wave vectors
and
, with the latter decaying twice as rapidly from the core as the former. These data imply that the primary field-induced state in underdoped superconducting cuprates is a PDW, with approximately eight CuO
unit-cell periodicity and coexisting with its secondary CDWs.
For centuries, the scientific discovery process has been based on systematic human observation and analysis of natural phenomena
. Today, however, automated instrumentation and large-scale data ...acquisition are generating datasets of such large volume and complexity as to defy conventional scientific methodology. Radically different scientific approaches are needed, and machine learning (ML) shows great promise for research fields such as materials science
. Given the success of ML in the analysis of synthetic data representing electronic quantum matter (EQM)
, the next challenge is to apply this approach to experimental data-for example, to the arrays of complex electronic-structure images
obtained from atomic-scale visualization of EQM. Here we report the development and training of a suite of artificial neural networks (ANNs) designed to recognize different types of order hidden in such EQM image arrays. These ANNs are used to analyse an archive of experimentally derived EQM image arrays from carrier-doped copper oxide Mott insulators. In these noisy and complex data, the ANNs discover the existence of a lattice-commensurate, four-unit-cell periodic, translational-symmetry-breaking EQM state. Further, the ANNs determine that this state is unidirectional, revealing a coincident nematic EQM state. Strong-coupling theories of electronic liquid crystals
are consistent with these observations.
Strong electronic correlations, emerging from the parent Mott insulator phase, are key to copper-based high-temperature superconductivity. By contrast, the parent phase of an iron-based ...high-temperature superconductor is never a correlated insulator. However, this distinction may be deceptive because Fe has five actived d orbitals while Cu has only one. In theory, such orbital multiplicity can generate a Hund's metal state, in which alignment of the Fe spins suppresses inter-orbital fluctuations, producing orbitally selective strong correlations. The spectral weights Z
of quasiparticles associated with different Fe orbitals m should then be radically different. Here we use quasiparticle scattering interference resolved by orbital content to explore these predictions in FeSe. Signatures of strong, orbitally selective differences of quasiparticle Z
appear on all detectable bands over a wide energy range. Further, the quasiparticle interference amplitudes reveal that Formula: see text, consistent with earlier orbital-selective Cooper pairing studies. Thus, orbital-selective strong correlations dominate the parent state of iron-based high-temperature superconductivity in FeSe.
Unconventional superconductivity (SC) is said to occur when Cooper pair formation is dominated by repulsive electron–electron interactions, so that the symmetry of the pair wave function is other ...than an isotropic s-wave. The strong, on-site, repulsive electron–electron interactions that are the proximate cause of such SC are more typically drivers of commensurate magnetism. Indeed, it is the suppression of commensurate antiferromagnetism (AF) that usually allows this type of unconventional superconductivity to emerge. Importantly, however, intervening between these AF and SC phases, intertwined electronic ordered phases (IP) of an unexpected nature are frequently discovered. For this reason, it has been extremely difficult to distinguish the microscopic essence of the correlated superconductivity from the often spectacular phenomenology of the IPs. Here we introduce a model conceptual framework within which to understand the relationship between AF electron–electron interactions, IPs, and correlated SC. We demonstrate its effectiveness in simultaneously explaining the consequences of AF interactions for the copper-based, iron-based, and heavy-fermion superconductors, as well as for their quite distinct IPs.
The CuO₂ antiferromagnetic insulator is transformed by hole-doping into an exotic quantum fluid usually referred to as the pseudogap (PG) phase. Its defining characteristic is a strong suppression of ...the electronic density-of-states D(E) for energies |E| < Δ*, where Δ* is the PG energy. Unanticipated broken-symmetry phases have been detected by a wide variety of techniques in the PG regime, most significantly a finite-Q density-wave (DW) state and a Q = 0 nematic (NE) state. Sublattice-phase-resolved imaging of electronic structure allows the doping and energy dependence of these distinct broken-symmetry states to be visualized simultaneously. Using this approach, we show that even though their reported ordering temperatures TDW
and TNE
are unrelated to each other, both the DW and NE states always exhibit theirmaximumspectral intensity at the same energy, and using independent measurements that this is the PG energy Δ*. Moreover, no new energy-gap opening coincides with the appearance of the DW state (which should theoretically open an energy gap on the Fermi surface), while the observed PG opening coincides with the appearance of the NE state (which should theoretically be incapable of opening a Fermi-surface gap). We demonstrate how this perplexing phenomenology of thermal transitions and energy-gap opening at the breaking of two highly distinct symmetries may be understood as the natural consequence of a vestigial nematic state within the pseudogap phase of Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈.
Despite strong vetting for disease activity, only 10% of candidate new molecular entities in early stage clinical trials are eventually approved. Analyzing historical pipeline data, Nelson et al. ...2015 (Nat. Genet.) concluded pipeline drug targets with human genetic evidence of disease association are twice as likely to lead to approved drugs. Taking advantage of recent clinical development advances and rapid growth in GWAS datasets, we extend the original work using updated data, test whether genetic evidence predicts future successes and introduce statistical models adjusting for target and indication-level properties. Our work confirms drugs with genetically supported targets were more likely to be successful in Phases II and III. When causal genes are clear (Mendelian traits and GWAS associations linked to coding variants), we find the use of human genetic evidence increases approval by greater than two-fold, and, for Mendelian associations, the positive association holds prospectively. Our findings suggest investments into genomics and genetics are likely to be beneficial to companies deploying this strategy.
The quantum condensate of Cooper pairs forming a superconductor was originally conceived as being translationally invariant. In theory, however, pairs can exist with finite momentum Q, thus ...generating a state with a spatially modulated Cooper-pair density. Such a state has been created in ultracold (6)Li gas but never observed directly in any superconductor. It is now widely hypothesized that the pseudogap phase of the copper oxide superconductors contains such a 'pair density wave' state. Here we report the use of nanometre-resolution scanned Josephson tunnelling microscopy to image Cooper pair tunnelling from a d-wave superconducting microscope tip to the condensate of the superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x. We demonstrate condensate visualization capabilities directly by using the Cooper-pair density variations surrounding zinc impurity atoms and at the Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x crystal supermodulation. Then, by using Fourier analysis of scanned Josephson tunnelling images, we discover the direct signature of a Cooper-pair density modulation at wavevectors QP ≈ (0.25, 0)2π/a0 and (0, 0.25)2π/a0 in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x. The amplitude of these modulations is about five per cent of the background condensate density and their form factor exhibits primarily s or s' symmetry. This phenomenology is consistent with Ginzburg-Landau theory when a charge density wave with d-symmetry form factor and wavevector QC = QP coexists with a d-symmetry superconductor; it is also predicted by several contemporary microscopic theories for the pseudogap phase.
The defining characteristic
of Cooper pairs with finite centre-of-mass momentum is a spatially modulating superconducting energy gap Δ(r), where r is a position. Recently, this concept has been ...generalized to the pair-density-wave (PDW) state predicted to exist in copper oxides (cuprates)
. Although the signature of a cuprate PDW has been detected in Cooper-pair tunnelling
, the distinctive signature in single-electron tunnelling of a periodic Δ(r) modulation has not been observed. Here, using a spectroscopic technique based on scanning tunnelling microscopy, we find strong Δ(r) modulations in the canonical cuprate Bi
Sr
CaCu
O
that have eight-unit-cell periodicity or wavevectors Q ≈ (2π/a
)(1/8, 0) and Q ≈ (2π/a
)(0, 1/8) (where a
is the distance between neighbouring Cu atoms). Simultaneous imaging of the local density of states N(r, E) (where E is the energy) reveals electronic modulations with wavevectors Q and 2Q, as anticipated when the PDW coexists with superconductivity. Finally, by visualizing the topological defects in these N(r, E) density waves at 2Q, we find them to be concentrated in areas where the PDW spatial phase changes by π, as predicted by the theory of half-vortices in a PDW state
. Overall, this is a compelling demonstration, from multiple single-electron signatures, of a PDW state coexisting with superconductivity in Bi
Sr
CaCu
O
.
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