Splitting of the resistive transition of copper oxide superconductors: Intrinsic double superconducting transitions versus extrinsic effects

Abstract

To prove the possible existence of an intrinsic double superconducting transition in the high-temperature copper oxide superconductors (HTSC), an effect recently attributed by various groups to different intrinsic properties of these materials (including unconventional wave pairing), we present in this paper high resolution data of the electrical resistivity, ρ(T), around the superconducting transition of different single crystal and polycrystal YBa2Cu3O7−δ samples. The analysis of the temperature derivative of these ρ(T) data strongly suggests that (i) with a temperature resolution well to within 20 mK, the intrinsic resistive transition of the HTSC does not present any double transition anomaly and (ii) the double peak structure observed in dρ(T)/dT by some authors is probably an extrinsic effect (associated with stoichiometric inhomogeneities in some cases, and with experimental artifacts in other cases). © 1996 The American Physical Society.

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