Dual character of the electronic structure of YBa2Cu4O8: the conduction bands of CuO2 planes and CuO chains.

We use microprobe angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (microARPES) to separately investigate the electronic properties of CuO2 planes and CuO chains in the high temperature superconductor, YBa2Cu4O8. For the CuO2 planes, a two-dimensional (2D) electronic structure is observed and, in contrast to Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta, the bilayer splitting is almost isotropic and 50% larger, which strongly suggests that bilayer splitting has no direct effect on the superconducting properties. In addition, the scattering rate for the bonding band is about 1.5 times stronger than the antibonding band and is independent of momentum. For the CuO chains, the electronic structure is quasi-one-dimensional and consists of a conduction and insulating band. Finally, we find that the conduction electrons are well confined within the planes and chains with a nontrivial hybridization.

Nondispersive fermi arcs and the absence of charge ordering in the pseudogap phase of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta.

The autocorrelation of angle resolved photoemission data from the high temperature superconductor Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta) shows distinct peaks in momentum space which disperse with binding energy in the superconducting state, but not in the pseudogap phase. Although it is tempting to attribute a nondispersive behavior in momentum space to charge ordering, a deconstruction of the autocorrelation reveals that the nondispersive peaks arise from the tips of the Fermi arcs, which themselves do not change with binding energy.

Crossover from coherent to incoherent electronic excitations in the normal state of Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta).

Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and resistivity measurements are used to explore the overdoped region of the high temperature superconductor Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta). We find evidence for a new crossover line in the phase diagram between a coherent metal phase, for lower temperatures and higher doping, and an incoherent metal phase, for higher temperatures and lower doping. The former is characterized by two well-defined spectral peaks in ARPES due to coherent bilayer splitting and superlinear behavior in the resistivity, whereas the latter is characterized by a single broad spectral feature in ARPES and a linear temperature dependence of the resistivity.

Spontaneous breaking of time-reversal symmetry in the pseudogap state of a high-Tc superconductor.

A change in 'symmetry' is often observed when matter undergoes a phase transition-the symmetry is said to be spontaneously broken. The transition made by underdoped high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors is unusual, in that it is not a mean-field transition as seen in other superconductors. Rather, there is a region in the phase diagram above the superconducting transition temperature Tc (where phase coherence and superconductivity begin) but below a characteristic temperature T* where a 'pseudogap' appears in the spectrum of electronic excitations. It is therefore important to establish if T* is just a cross-over temperature arising from fluctuations in the order parameter that will establish superconductivity at Tc (refs 3, 4), or if it marks a phase transition where symmetry is spontaneously broken. Here we report that, for a material in the pseudogap state, left-circularly polarized photons give a different photocurrent from right-circularly polarized photons. This shows that time-reversal symmetry is spontaneously broken below T*, which therefore corresponds to a phase transition.