Signatures of two-dimensional superconductivity emerging within a three-dimensional host superconductor.

Spatial disorder has been shown to drive two-dimensional (2D) superconductors to an insulating phase through a superconductor-insulator transition (SIT). Numerical calculations predict that with increasing disorder, emergent electronic granularity is expected in these materials-a phenomenon where superconducting (SC) domains on the scale of the material's coherence length are embedded in an insulating matrix and coherently coupled by Josephson tunneling. Here, we present spatially resolved scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) measurements of the three-dimensional (3D) superconductor BaPb Bi O (BPBO), which surprisingly demonstrate three key signatures of emergent electronic granularity, having only been previously conjectured and observed in 2D thin-film systems.

Nonadiabatic coupling of the dynamical structure to the superconductivity in YSrCuMoO and SrCuO.

A crucial issue in cuprates is the extent and mechanism of the coupling of the lattice to the electrons and the superconductivity. Here we report Cu K edge extended X-ray absorption fine structure measurements elucidating the internal quantum tunneling polaron (iqtp) component of the dynamical structure in two heavily overdoped superconducting cuprate compounds, tetragonal YSrCuMoO with superconducting critical temperature, T = 84 K and hole density = 0.3 to 0.

Local lattice distortions and dynamics in extremely overdoped superconducting YSrCuMoO.

A common characteristic of many "overdoped" cuprates prepared with high-pressure oxygen is values ≥ 50 K that often exceed that of optimally doped parent compounds, despite O stoichiometries that place the materials at the edge or outside of the conventional boundary between superconducting and normal Fermi liquid states. X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) measurements at 52 K on samples of high-pressure oxygen (HPO) YSrCuMoO, = 84 K show that the Mo is in the (VI) valence in an unusually undistorted octahedral geometry with predominantly Mo neighbors that is consistent with its assigned substitution for Cu in the chain sites of the structure. Perturbations of the Cu environments are minimal, although the Cu X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) differs from that in other cuprates.

Local structure of SrCuO, a 95 K cuprate superconductor without CuO planes.

The local structure of the highly "overdoped" 95 K superconductor SrCuO determined by Cu K X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) at 62 K in magnetically oriented samples shows that 1) the magnetization is perpendicular to the axis; 2) at these levels of precision the Cu sublattice is tetragonal in agreement with the crystal structure; the O sublattice has 3) continuous -Cu-O- chains that orient perpendicular to an applied magnetic field; 4) approximately half-filled -Cu-O- chains that orient parallel to this field; 5) a substantial number of apical O vacancies; 6) O ions at some apical positions with expanded Cu-O distances; and 7) interstitial positions that imply highly displaced Sr ions. These results contradict the universally accepted features of cuprates that require intact CuO planes, magnetization along the axis, and a termination of the superconductivity when the excess charge on the CuO Cu ions exceeds 0.27.

The motion and distribution of the gas in the central 300 pc of the galaxy as revealed by spectra of H.

Spectroscopy of absorption lines of H in the central molecular zone (CMZ) of the Galaxy show that a previously largely unknown component of the interstellar medium there, warm (T∼200 K) and diffuse (n ≲ 10 cm) gas, makes up a large fraction of the volume of the CMZ, and that this gas is moving radially outward from the centre. These discoveries upend the generally accepted understanding that the interstellar environment of the CMZ comprises almost entirely an ultra-hot plasma and dense molecular clouds. The radial momentum associated with the diffuse gas in the CMZ exceeds that of the ejecta of thousands of core-collapse supernovae and implies some extraordinary past activity in the centre, possibly associated with the supermassive black hole, Sgr A*.