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Coexistence of Fermi arcs and Fermi pockets in a high-Tc copper oxide superconductor

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Abstract

In the pseudogap state of the high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) copper oxide superconductors1, angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) measurements have seen Fermi arcs—that is, open-ended gapless sections in the large Fermi surface2,3,4,5,6,7,8—rather than a closed loop expected of an ordinary metal. This is all the more puzzling because Fermi pockets (small closed Fermi surface features) have been suggested by recent quantum oscillation measurements9,10,11,12,13,14. The Fermi arcs cannot be understood in terms of existing theories, although there is a solution in the form of conventional Fermi surface pockets associated with competing order, but with a back side that is for detailed reasons invisible to photoemission probes15. Here we report ARPES measurements of Bi2Sr2-xLa x CuO6+δ (La-Bi2201) that reveal Fermi pockets. The charge carriers in the pockets are holes, and the pockets show an unusual dependence on doping: they exist in underdoped but not overdoped samples. A surprise is that these Fermi pockets appear to coexist with the Fermi arcs. This coexistence has not been expected theoretically.

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Figure 1: Fermi surface and band structure of a La-Bi2201 sample.
Figure 2: Identification of the Fermi pocket in the photoemission data.
Figure 3: Temperature dependence of the Fermi pocket.
Figure 4: Doping evolution of Fermi surface topology in La-Bi2201.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D.-H. Lee, P. A. Lee, S. Sachdev, Z.-X. Shen, X. G. Wen, Z. Y. Weng, T. Xiang, G. M. Zhang and F. C. Zhang for discussions. This work was supported by the NSFC, the MOST of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Author Contributions J.M. contributed to La-Bi2201 sample growth with the assistance of G.L.; X.D. and W.L. contributed to the magnetic measurement of samples; G.L., W.Z., L.Z., H.L., J.M., X.D., X.J., D.M., S.L., J.Z., G.W., Y. Zhou, Y. Zhu, X.W., Z.X. and C.C. contributed to the development and maintenance of the laser-ARPES system; J.M. carried out the experiment with assistance from G.L., W.Z., L.Z., H.L., X.J., D.M. and S.L.; X.J.Z. and J.M. analysed the data and wrote the paper; X.J.Z. was responsible for overall project direction, planning, management and infrastructure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Laboratory for Superconductivity, Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

    Jianqiao Meng, Guodong Liu, Wentao Zhang, Lin Zhao, Haiyun Liu, Xiaowen Jia, Daixiang Mu, Shanyu Liu, Xiaoli Dong, Jun Zhang, Wei Lu & X. J. Zhou

  2. Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

    Guiling Wang, Yong Zhou, Yong Zhu, Xiaoyang Wang, Zuyan Xu & Chuangtian Chen

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  1. Jianqiao Meng
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Correspondence to X. J. Zhou.

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Meng, J., Liu, G., Zhang, W. et al. Coexistence of Fermi arcs and Fermi pockets in a high-Tc copper oxide superconductor. Nature 462, 335–338 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08521

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