Quantifying interaction mechanism in infinite layer nickelate superconductors

Abstract

The connection between the long-range antiferromagnetic order in cuprates and the high-temperature superconductivity is a scientific problem that has yet to be solved after nearly four decades. The properties and difficulties of describing nickelate superconductors are similar to those of cuprates. Recently, Fowlie et al. [Nat. Phys. 18, 1043 (2022)] aimed to detect the antiferromagnetic order in R1−xSrxNiO2 (R = Nd, Pr, La; x ∼ 0, 0.2) films by using the muon spin rotation (μSR) technique. The research group reported the presence of short-range antiferromagnetic order in every nickelate studied. Here, our goal was to prove that this interaction is present in the nickelate films. We did this by analyzing the temperature dependent resistivity, ρ(T), data from the research group. Global ρ(T) data fits to the advanced Bloch–Grüneisen model showed that each of the R1−xSrxNiO2 compounds can be characterized by a unique power-law exponent, p (where p = 2 for the electron–electron scattering, p = 3 for the electron–magnon scattering, and p = 5 for the electron–phonon scattering), and global characteristic temperature, Tω (which has the meaning of the Debye temperature at p = 5). We found that p = 2.0 in Nd- and Pr-based compounds and p = 1.3 for La-based compounds. The latter value does not have any interpretation within established theoretical models. We also analyzed ρ(T) data for Nd1–xSrxNiO2(0.125≤x≤0.325) reported by Lee et al. [Nature 619, 288 (2023)]. Our analysis of nickelates led us to conclude that a new theoretical model is needed to describe ρ(T) in materials exhibiting a short-range antiferromagnetic order.