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Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 197004 (2003) [4 pages]

Field-Induced Thermal Metal-to-Insulator Transition in Underdoped La2-xSrxCuO4+δ

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D. G. Hawthorn1, R. W. Hill1, C. Proust1,*, F. Ronning1, Mike Sutherland1, Etienne Boaknin1, C. Lupien1,†, M. A. Tanatar1, Johnpierre Paglione1, S. Wakimoto1, H. Zhang1, Louis Taillefer1,‡, T. Kimura2, M. Nohara2, H. Takagi2, and N. E. Hussey3
1Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2Department of Advanced Materials Science, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
3H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

Received 24 December 2002; published 15 May 2003

The transport of heat and charge in cuprates was measured in single crystals of La2-xSrxCuO4+δ (LSCO) across the doping phase diagram at low temperatures. In underdoped LSCO, the thermal conductivity is found to decrease with increasing magnetic field in the T→0 limit, in striking contrast to the increase observed in all superconductors, including cuprates at higher doping. In heavily underdoped LSCO, where superconductivity can be entirely suppressed with an applied magnetic field, we show that a novel thermal metal-to-insulator transition takes place upon going from the superconducting state to the field-induced normal state.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.197004
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.197004
PACS:
74.25.Fy, 74.72.Dn

*Present address: Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés, 31432 Toulouse, France.

†Present address: Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

‡Present address: Départment de Physique, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.

 
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